an amazing likeness
Church Rd in Brunswick is used by lots of runners; it is a common route for Bowdoin students and runners doing loops from downtown. On weekends, lots of runners and bikers use it for long runs / rides from Freeport. There is no way any driver should be surprised to have a runner coming towards them. She was wearing visible clothing. She was running against traffic.
Never assume the driver sees you. Never.
...a woman jogging on Church Road in Brunswick was hospitalized with serious injuries after being struck head-on by an SUV this morning.
Police learned of the incident at 7 a.m.near the Pleasant Hill Road intersection.
The victim, Jeanine May, 61, Brunswick, was transported to Maine Medical Center in Portland.
May was listed in critical condition Wednesday afternoon, according to the hospital.
According to Brunswick Police Chief Scott Stewart, May was wearing bright clothing while jogging. There was adequate daylight at the time of the crash for May to be visible to drivers, Stewart said...
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
Sad. I always try to operate under the assumption that any driver I interact with while I'm running is A) stupid and B) doesn't see me. Sometimes, as I know you know all too well, MT, sometimes even that isn't enough.
A list of my PRs in a misguided attempt to impress people that do not care.
One day at a time
I think way too many people are still texting while driving. I see cars all the time veer into the breakdown lane on 295. Really scary.
I am lucky to be in a fairly rural area, and can do a lot of running on low traffic, low speed limit cross streets, but I run facing traffic, no earbuds, and I keep my eyes on the front wheels of oncoming vehicles, ready to stop and step (or leap) onto the shoulder if they're pointed anywhere except where they're supposed to.
It still feels hazardous.
Since I posted this way-back-when, we've had walkers killed in Augusta, cyclist in Portland and Belgrade.
I was cleaning up some of the piles of paper in my at-home office recently and came across the original police report from when I was hit by a car while running some time ago. I hadn't read it in a while. In the end, it made me realize just how much the scales are tilted towards the car.
I made the time to drive most of my common running routes recently to see what the driver sees. I've changed which side of the road I use in some sections as a result...and, as chicken-little as it sounds, decided to give up a couple of them altogether. (To expand on this, I used to run them at night, with no traffic and blinking lights fore and aft, but now that I'm a layabout non-worker, doing them in the daytime is more risk than I'm comfortable with.)
I get the stinkeye from drivers all the time because I choose to veer and run behind them as they approach the street I'm on. They always seem shocked that I didn't trust them.
I so hope they will make a trail out of the RR tracks between Portland and Auburn. Wouldn't that be awesome? Not only would it be great for walkers, runners, and bicyclists, it would get the state off our backs, ha. The RR tracks cross our private road in North Yarmouth and it's been a nightmare. The Maine DOT wants us to sign a "crossing agreement." We don't mind paying a yearly fee for the privilege of crossing the tracks, but we refuse to sign a contract with such onerous terms - they want all the rights and to give us all the responsibilities. We used to send them a check annually but explain we wouldn't sign the contract, and they always sent back the uncashed check. Idiots.