this is the scoop:
lately we have seen two little boys (about 6-8 years of age) dressed in army fatigue/ masks etc... carrying toys guns/rifles on the main (and I do mean a main/major) road on our nightly Starbucks walk. There is a construction area on the other side of the street that these boys will cross the busy road to go play in the ditch and "shoot" the people and cars as they pass...now that is all very disturbing in its own right on many MANY levels for me but perhaps most upsetting was on Wednesday night.
Shelby, Kaeden and I were heading home and we saw these boys again - Shelby and I were discussing how upsetting the whole gun and shooting things was when the boys (who were on the other side of the street, in the ditch) got up and ran across the first two lanes of traffic (and not anywhere near a crosswalk) to the middle grassy area...this is when it all becomes a bit of a blur as it happened so fast...
when the boys came running onto the grass area, a white truck in the lane closest to the middle slams on their brakes (most likely concerned that the boys were going to run in front of him) and the one boy continues across the road in front of the truck without looking - and meanwhile a large cruising motorcycle (with two people) are coming up the lane closest to me and not slowing down (probably going about 50 Km's) and according to Shelby (as I don't really remember how it all went down) I ran towards the road, screaming STOP and waving my hands like a mad women, I remember I was yelling at the motorcycle but it was actually the little boy that stopped at the very edge of the white truck as the motorcycle went whizzing by.
when he came across the road (safely) I was pretty upset and was using my "mom" voice that they can not be crossing the road like that and that he almost got hit by a motorcycle and his response to me:
" its not a big deal, we didn't get hit"
and just as I was about to continue on with my lecture as my heart and knees were still shaking...one of the boys mom came up to me and I sort of apologized for yelling and I am not sure if she was in shock or wasn't as concerned as I was or what the deal was, but she saw the whole thing going down (she was about a 2 blocks away walking her dogs) and didn't really react but did start lecturing the kids about using the crosswalk etc...at that point we took off.
the lessons in this:
I reminded Kaeden (whose eyes were huge as he took this all in) the importance of not crossing the road without a parent and that he HAS to go to a crosswalk
I told Shelby the importance of NEVER EVER going/driving by a car that is stopped in a lane beside you for no apparent reason without slowing down to make sure no one is crossing
That when you are crossing a road (crosswalk or not) that you are always checking that the cars in all lanes are stopping.
and the most important lesson I took away from this (other than keeping a very close eye on that my child is doing at all times) was that I would have stopped just like the white truck but by doing so he actually set up this whole recipe for disaster as the boy was so short that he couldn't see over the truck to see anyone coming, and of course the motorcycle could not see him until it would have been too late - so even though it seemed like the correct thing to do to allow them to cross the rest of the road it actually was very dangerous.
I apologise this was so long winded but I thought it was an important message to share - I said to Shelby when we got back from the walk that you really never realize how close things are at the time but that little boy was about 2 seconds away from a very serious, perhaps fatal accident or even how quickly something can happen that could have impacted so many lives.
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