Inches from Disaster

All you faithful readers are probably wondering what the "mysterious event" is by now that I referenced in my CCTV Hacking story. Why could I possibly want security camera footage? (Other than the fact, that's kind of cool.) Well, let's just say, please drive safely, people.

Let's set the scene. It was a dark and story nigh- wait. It was a sunny, clear morning with excellent visibility. A shock for San Francisco, where the norm is dense fog. It was around 7:50AM on Saturday, March 28th. My girlfriend and I were walking over to the starting line for the Zoom SF Half Marathon. (Yes, that's yet another story!) At the time we were waiting at the crossroads of Richardson and Lyon where it was currently green for the 3 lanes of vehicles crossing Lyon St. and red for pedestrians crossing Richardson Ave.

After a few seconds, a Muni line pulls up on Richardson Ave. to pick up and drop off passengers. It's slow, as usual, and misses the green light for cars. No big deal, it pulls up to the crosswalk and waits for the next one.

At this time, the vehicle light has been solid red for a few seconds and the pedestrian crosswalk light has turned green. So we start crossing. And keep in mind, we're heading to a half marathon so we considered jogging across as a warm-up, but we can't really see around the bus, so we're a bit more careful. And I have not been able to stop thinking about that moment ever since.

Literally, right after passing the bus on lane 1, an enormous black SUV completely blows through the red light on lane 2. The light has been solid red for over 12 seconds at this point. This is maybe 3 feet away from our faces. I can feel the wind from the truck as it blew by. And when I say it blew, I really mean it. The speed limit for vehicular traffic is 25 mph, and while I am not a police-grade speed camera, I can absolutely tell you with 100% certainty that they were going much faster.

Afterthought: I may not be a police-grade speed camera, but by looking at the footage, I was able to determine a rough speed estimate. Using Google Maps, I found out that the distance to cross the intersection for vehicles is about 80 ft. I stepped through my security video frame-by-frame and determined the start and end timestamps, which made the time they crossed the intersection about 1.6 seconds. After doing some conversions, that comes out to over 34 miles per hour.

We were both in shock. Not knowing what to do, we safely scramble to the other sidewalk, where it was hopefully safe. We shake it off for a few minutes, when the dust starts to clear. I had a gut feeling telling me "that was not okay." Those types of drivers should not be on the road, and they'd probably do it again given the chance. I also couldn't stop thinking about what would have happened if we were on our phones, or decided to jog instead of walk (we would have been a few feet ahead...) We could have been injured at best, paralyzed for life at worst, or we could have both... Or the worst possible scenario in my mind (maybe this sounds bad) but I cannot image if only one of us... How could the other person live after that?

And my sleepless nights begin.

I remembered that we saw the Muni bus go by when we were at the crosswalk. In the past, I've noticed dashboard cameras in them, and I figured it would be worth a shot reporting this to Muni. I mean, nobody got hurt, but technically, the driver still broke the law by running a red light and speeding. So that plus the scare factor was enough for me. We had to look at the transit map to determine which bus it was, which was the 28 southbound. After deconstructing the file they provided, I reported it to the San Francisco Police Department, but they told me I needed to go in person to bring the evidence.

I hope something comes out of this. If it were up to me, that driver would absolutely lose their license and face serious consequences. But maybe that's too radical for car-dependent America. But in the end, I have actual evidence of this driver breaking the law and causing real danger to the people around them. Final thoughts? Please. PLEASE drive safely, people. You can so easily ruin someone's life. To be continued...

Read the next part here.