Close Encounters with Cars

Stoic lessons from brushes with death and injury

Scott Umstatt via Unsplash

Yesterday morning as I was taking my kids to school, as we were driving through some side streets the way ahead was blocked by a car and two women standing beside it. At first I thought they were just dropping something off, but as I pulled behind them they looked at me and motioned for me to pull over.

“A man got hit by a car!” one of them said to me.

Oh, no, I thought, as I pulled off into a side parking lot and got out of the car to help. Here we go again.

You see, this was not my first encounter with a pedestrian/car incident. Maybe I’m somehow particularly prone to happening across them, or maybe it’s because my city has a very high rate of pedestrian accidents. But in the past four years this was my third experience of someone getting hit or nearly hit by a car.

I’ve considered writing about these before, but I always decided against it because I don’t want to make it seem like I’m sort of hero who goes around rescuing pedestrians. That’s definitely not true. (As you’ll see below, my actions are quite minimal.) But after this latest incident it seems like a definite a trend, so I think it’s worth writing about as part of my normal life. Perhaps this is more common than I realized and other people regularly encounter these types of accidents too.

If you’re interested in hearing more about my experiences—and how Stoicism helped me to stay calm as I handled them—read on. I’ll try to keep the narration as short as possible, but it does tend to get a bit long in places (sorry!). But I’ll be sure to share the lessons I’ve learned and perhaps some general advice on being prepared to handle unexpected situations.

I’m going to start with the worst one.

Incident 1: My Son Almost Gets Run Over

What happened: In 2020, when my kids were ages 4,6, and 8, we walked from our house to Dunkin Donuts down the street. We live on the corner of a pretty busy intersection, so we first had to cross one street and then the other. Trying to be a good role model for them, I showed them how to follow all the rules and crossing signs. We waited on the first corner and crossed when we got the pedestrian light. Then we waited on the second corner for our pedestrian crossing light. I was holding my 8-year-old daughter and my 4-year-old son’s hands, but my 6-year-old son, being full of energy, was in front of us.

They waited perfectly for our turn to cross, and as soon as we got the pedestrian light on our side I told them we could go. My 6-year-old was a few feet in front of me. But as we stepped out onto the road, a car came straight for us. It had been sitting caddy-corner to us at the light, facing us (in full view) and waiting to turn left. Apparently the light turned green for them as soon as the pedestrian light came on for us, and the car gunned its engine and turned left right where we were walking.

It all happened in an instant, as these things do. I could immediately see that the car was about to run us over, so I stepped backward up onto the curb and pulled along the two children whose hands I was holding. But my 6-year-old had already stepped several paces into the middle of the road. I yelled as loudly as I could, “Thomas, get back!” Thank goodness he was listening and he sprang back immediately, just inches away from where the car was barreling down on him. It missed him by less than 10 centimeters. The driver sped off down the road without stopping or even slowing down—apparently unconcerned that they had almost killed a child.

As I stared down the road after the disappearing car (unfortunately I couldn’t get the license plate number), I just couldn’t believe that anyone would treat the life of another person so callously. But it was over as quickly as it had begun. After making sure Thomas was unhurt, we continued crossing the road and proceeded down the sidewalk to Dunkin Donuts as if nothing had happened. Even though I was physically shaking for a while, we got our donuts and walked back home, very carefully crossing the street, without further incident. (Now anytime the kids don’t want to listen to my advice, I can now say: My advice saved Thomas’s life! He’s only alive now because he listened to me. They still don’t listen though.)

Lessons Learned: I’m not sure if it was my Stoic training that enabled me to react quickly as the car peeled off toward us, or if it was my maternal instinct kicking in. But if I had been slower to react—or if I had panicked and frozen on the spot—we could have all been killed. I am grateful that I was able to call out immediately to Thomas, and I’m even more grateful that he followed my directions. I would say this is a case where mental preparation—being ready for the unexpected—definitely paid off. When you wake up each morning, you don’t know what the day will bring. Perhaps it will be boring, or perhaps something unusual will happen. But cultivating a mindset to be responsive to the environment around you is very valuable in these unexpected situations.

I think the biggest lesson from this experience is to treat each day as your last, and be grateful for every single day you have with the people you love. This incident could have ended so differently. Sometimes I picture the scenario in an alternate reality where my son did not get up off that pavement. It was just milliseconds from happening. I now consider every day with him, and with my other two children, as bonus time, for which I am extremely grateful. Parenting is challenging sometimes, but I have learned to appreciate all my time with them because it’s not a guarantee. Prepare yourself for each day to be the last one you spend with your family. And then if fortunate grants you another day, consider it a gift.

Incident 2: High School Girl Struck by a Car

One day last year, as I was on my way to pick up my kids from school, I was driving past the local high school when I witnessed an accident. A teenager looking down at her phone stepped out onto the road, right into oncoming traffic. I was driving directly behind the car involved in the incident and saw the whole thing clearly. She walked onto the road right as a utility vehicle was passing, and then half fell, half bounced backward onto the ground. I knew she hadn’t been killed, but I thought her foot had been run over and she was badly hurt.

I immediately put on my flashers, pulled my car over and jumped out, ran over to the girl, and knelt down beside her where she lay, stunned, on the ground. To my relief, I didn’t see a crushed foot or any serious injuries. It turns out that she hadn’t been run over by the truck but had come into contact with the side mirror and was knocked backward. She had the wind knocked out of her, but she was conscious and didn’t seem to have any injuries. She sat up and told me she was okay—she was obviously flustered and embarrassed about what had happened.

Soon more people began gathering around. I think everyone behaved in an exemplary manner. The driver of the utility truck had immediately pulled over and came over to check on the girl. I think someone called 911, just in case. Several other people who were behind me in traffic also pulled over and got out to help.

So far, so good. But then a commanding middle-aged woman made her way toward us and quickly took over the scene. Her voice was twice as loud as anyone else’s, and she hovered over the girl and started insisting that she go to the emergency room.

“No, no, I’m fine,” the girl protested, but the middle-aged woman wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“No, honey, you really need to go to the emergency room,” she kept saying. “You need to get checked out.”

Within a couple minutes the girl’s mother had arrived. I think she had been waiting for her daughter a couple blocks over, or else she had been on her way, so she got there quickly.

The middle-aged woman now turned on the mother. “She really needs to go to the emergency room,” she intoned. “She has to go.”

The mother, who of course had already made sure her daughter was alright, told the woman she didn’t think that was necessary. Her daughter would be fine.

The middle-aged woman then stood and argued with the girl’s mother. I don’t know if it’s because the mother was wearing a headscarf and had an accent, and perhaps the middle-aged woman felt she didn’t know anything about the United States. Or maybe she would have done the same to anyone. I didn’t even see the outcome because I walked over to the school officials who had now gathered nearby. I told them I had seen the accident and asked if they needed a witness statement. The school officials said they didn’t think so, but I gave them my name and phone number in case they needed something later. I drove off to pick up my kids, and I never heard anything about the accident again.

Lessons learned: In any situation I try to ask myself, “What’s the most useful thing I can do here?” I’m not sure I always get it right, but I feel like this helps me to aim for the right balance of involvement. The middle-aged woman who arrived and started bossing everyone around was not helping. She was just trying to control everyone according to her own narrow belief of what should happen. She thought she was helping by telling everyone what to do, but the people around her were trying to decline her forceful suggestions without being downright rude—which just created a bad atmosphere and a greater burden on the victims. In my opinion, she butted into a situation in which she was not needed and simply started meddling.

Personally, I try to only involve myself if my help is clearly needed. In this case, since I was a direct witness to the incident and the first one on the scene, I had an important role to play in making sure the girl was alright. But once I had played that role, and once people with more right to be there (her mother and school administrators) took over, it was time for me to leave. I would only have been in the way if I had stayed and tried to do more. I provided my information in case I was needed in the future, and I left. If things had happened differently—for example, if the girl had been seriously hurt—perhaps I would have gone to the hospital with her, or made a statement to police. But I tried to use good judgment and do was appropriate to the situation.

Incident 3: Elderly Man Struck by a Car

Which brings us to the most recent incident, in which an elderly man was hit by a car right next to the public library. When the two women flagged me down and I pulled over, I first checked that they had already called 911. Yes, one of them was currently on the phone with 911. So I told my kids to stay in the car (they didn’t listen) and went over to where the accident had occurred. I didn’t know how bad it was or if I would be able to do anything to help. I have no medical training, so the most I could probably do is CPR if someone really needed it.

But it turned out that wasn’t necessary. The man was laying on his back on the pavement, where he had fallen, but he was conscious and talking. His head was bleeding, but not profusely, and two people were beside him pressing napkins to the back of his head to slow the bleeding. I later learned that they were the driver and passenger in the car that had hit him.

Whew. Things weren’t as bad as they could have been. He could move all his body parts and didn’t seem to have anything broken. I immediately asked myself what I could do that would be helpful in this situation. I remembered I had a soft blanket in the car, so I ran and got it, then we gently lifted his head and put the blanket under it. I’m sure this was much more comfortable than lying on the asphalt, and it also helped stop the bleeding.

What else could I do? The man seemed to be fully functional and in good mind. I held his hand and tried to keep him talking, both to keep him distracted and prevent him from losing consciousness. (Not sure if that’s the right thing to do, but that’s what they do in the movies!) The two occupants of the car that hit him stayed beside him and kept pressing napkins (the only bandages they had) against his head. They were clearly rattled, especially the young man who had been driving. He kept apologizing to the older man saying, “I’m so sorry I hit you,” over and over again. The older man kept replying, as he lay on the ground bleeding, “No, no, it’s my fault, I stepped out in front of the car. I don’t want you to feel guilty. I know all about feeling guilty, and I don’t want you to feel guilty about this.”

I could tell they were both getting agitated, so I tried to help them both stay calm by changing the subject to talk about normal things—where they lived, if they came that way often, the unseasonably cool weather, etc. The older man said he lived nearby and walked five miles every morning. (He was 80 years old and said this was the worst bump on the head he’d had since he played football when he was young!) The younger couple were college students in their last year of school. I think it was helpful for me just to be there as a calm and reassuring presence for them all, maintaining a sense of cheerful normalcy. The older man kept a tight grip on my hand as we waited for the paramedics to arrive.

Within a few minutes the police and EMTs arrived, followed by the older man’s wife (whom he had managed to call as he lay on the ground). I felt comfortable leaving him in better hands than mine and decided there was nothing more I could do. I didn’t witness the accident, and no one needed me to do anything else. So I took the kids to school and managed to get them to the door right before the bell rang.

Lessons learned: There are some callous people in the world, like the driver who almost ran my son down in Incident 2, but most people in the world are kind and generous. I was so impressed by the two young people who did everything right after striking the 80-year-old man, taking care of him as best they could. And I was impressed by the older man who was determined to make sure everyone knew the accident was his fault, not the college student’s. As soon as a police officer arrived and asked him what happened, he said, “I stepped out in front of their car.” Near the end of his life, he wanted to make sure he did not leave a shadow on this young man’s life, which was just beginning. Even though he was in shock and pain, he did everything he could to make sure the young man did not walk away carrying a heavy burden of guilt. I found much to admire in the behavior of these very different people.

As for me, I tried to do the best I could in the situation, offering what little help I had to give. There wasn’t anything for me to do medically, so I focused on providing comfort and calm: procuring a blanket, holding a hand, giving a reassuring smile. I certainly wasn’t saving anyone’s life, but perhaps I made things a little better than they otherwise would have been. I suppose I’ll never know.

Concluding Thoughts

Paradoxically, perhaps, these experiences have also helped me to live with less fear. It’s easy to think, “I’ll never let my kids play in the front yard again,” or “We will never go on another walk to the donut shop.” But I’ve had to confront the fact that life is inherently risky. These are not especially high-risk activities—they are normal activities, which are part of a normal life, and avoiding them would be abnormal. We simply have to accept that there is a chance of death every day, in everything we do. As Epictetus says, “The instrument of destruction may be a sword, or a wheel, or the sea, or a roof tile, or a tyrant. What does it matter by which road [we travel]? All roads are equal” (Discourses, 2.6, 18). One way or another we all must pass away. We have to live courageously until our time comes. Living in fear is not the right answer to the giant question mark of death.

Your life is completed every day, Seneca says. You never know which day will be your last, or perhaps the last day you spend with a beloved family member, so make the most of each one:

What is more foolish than being surprised that an event that could happen on every day has happened on a particular day? There is an absolute termination to human life at the point fixed by our fate's implacable necessity, but not one of us knows how close he is getting to that termination. Let us, then, compose our minds as if we have reached the end. Let us not put anything off: let us settle our accounts with life each and every day…

And so, dear Lucilius, make haste to live, and treat each day as a life in itself. A person who prepares himself like this, making the daily round of his entire life, is quite secure.

Seneca, Letters on Ethics, 101.7,10

I love this advice: treat each day as a life in itself. Experience your life fully and vigorously each day. Hold yourself accountable for being your best at every moment, because it could be your last. Settle your accounts and don’t put off the important things. Appreciate every minute you have.

I’m hoping that my string of close encounters with cars has come to an end, and maybe I’ll go years without having another one. But life isn’t necessarily that way. Another one could happen tomorrow, and it could be much worse. So I’ll keep trying to live each day as my potential last day, appreciating the beautiful world and the wonderful people in my life. I hope you do too.

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