A Close Shave

Posted by Rosie

Walking across the zebra crossing in Aunay-sur-Odon today, Tom, Ben and I were off to renew our library books. Half way across my second sense took over and I saw a car racing towards the crossing, obviously with no intention of stopping. My heart leapt into my mouth and I somehow manged to reach out and grab Tom who was several paces in front of me and yanked him unceremoniously backwards. At the last second the car driver, a young woman, applied the brakes and stopped just inches from where the three of us were standing. I really thought Tom was going to be killed. Had I been less shocked I would have told the woman exactly what I thought of her driving but as it was I just wanted to get off the road and onto the pavement. But then - she had the temerity to blame us before driving off without so much as a backward glance.

I know in France drivers do not always stop to let pedestrians onto a zebra crossing but when we started to cross the car to our left had stopped and this other car was a long way up the street with plenty of stopping time. A street I may add that has two other zebra crossings and 2 side junctions with right of way over the main road. It is NOT a street to race through.

Well, some-one was watching over us today but it shook us all up. When we crossed back to the car I had two small hands very firmly attached to mine.