I was not involved in the accident, well maybe peripherally, but I certainly witnessed it. It happened yesterday, before we went to the park. I was on my way to the grocery store. I was stopped at the light at Clayton and Big Bend, one of the top ten most accident-prone intersections in Saint Louis. As of late this intersection has become even more problematic than usual, due to construction. A persistent water leak on the eastside of Big Bend is being worked on. This leak has been going on for years. Repairs in the past had been attempted, but to no avail. This time, repair work had moved in and setup shop for the long haul. This messes up traffic patterns both eastbound and westbound on Clayton.

So, I was headed east on Clayton. The left turn signal had just turned green. I should also mention that there was a woman pedestrian waiting to cross Big Bend opposite me. She was wearing scrubs and might have been headed to the urgent care next to me. The light turns green, and the left turn traffic comes by and by and by, continuing long after the green arrow had turned yellow and then red. One last driver, slower than the rest tries to make it one more car. Fed up with this by now, I honk. Whether my honking distracted this errant driver in the mist of what was by now an illegal turn, I do not know. But a moment after their vehicle cleared the intersection, it strikes the medical worker, knocking her to the ground. That car stops, people are getting out of their cars, I inch forward, getting a better view of the essential worker sitting in the crosswalk. I see plenty of people there already helping and decide to get out of the intersection and headed on my way. I do not know how it played out, but my sense was that she was not seriously hurt. Just in case, the urgent care was mere feet away.

Maybe I should not have honked. But if I helped cause the accident, I was not at fault. I did not strike a pedestrian, in the middle of a crosswalk, with the walk light. The blame falls squarely on the driver, 100%. That I am certain of.