'Bryan Smith, the owner and operator of the Dodge van, came over the crest. He wasn't on the road; he was on the shoulder. My shoulder'.

Nashville is a creative town.  Lots of artist use walking as a way to work out any complex knot they have worked themselves into.  I recently read Stephen King's On Writing and was riveted by the spooky story from his real life of being struck by a van in 1999 while taking his daily 4 mile walk in Maine.


I recognized instantly his description of walking on roadways with narrow shoulders and no sidewalks.   All it takes is one distracted driver...


This is my own spooky spot.  As I head north on 23rd Av S after turning off of Golf Club, I enter this stretch.  What you can't see is the steep hill just beyond the horizon.  Drivers fly up that hill.  


I had one very, very close call here.  A driver in a black SUV hauling a*# up this hill heading south, swerved to the left to avoid me (walking against traffic as I should) only to see another driver, heading north at the very crest of the hill, therefore swerving back into my shoulder.  He stopped dead, flung open his car door and said, 'this is why Nashville Needs Sidewalks'.  


Terrifying.  I hate this hill. 

From On Writing, by Stephen King


'When I reached the highway I turned north, walking on the gravel shoulder, against traffic.  One car passed me, also headed north.  About three-quarters of a mild further along, the woman driving the car observed a light blue Dodge van heading south.  The van was looping from one side of the road to the other, barely under the driver's control.  The woman in the car turned to her passanger when they were safely past the wandering van and said, "That was Stephen King walking back there.  I sure hope that guy in the van doesn't hit him."


'Most of the sightlines along the mile of Route 5 which I walk are good, but there is one stretch, a short steep hill, where a pedestrian walking north can see very little of what might be coming his way.  I was 3/4 of the way up this hill when Bryan Smith, the owner and operator of the Dodge van, came over the crest.  He wasn't on the road; he was on the shoulder.  My shoulder.  I had perhaps 3/4 of a second to register this.  It was just time enough to think, My God, I'm going to be hit by a schoolbus.  I started to turn to my left.  There is a break in my memory here.  On the other side of it I'm on the ground, looking at the back of the van, which is now pulled off the road and tilted to one side.  This recollection is very clear and sharp, more like a snapshot than a memory.  There is dust around the van's taillights.  I register these things with no thought that I have been in an accident, or of anything else.  It's a snapshot, that's all.  I'm not thinking; my head has been swopped clean.'

***

Please take a few minutes to check out the new Look 4 Me campaign with stats about when, where and how pedestrians are struck and often killed in Nashville.

http://www.nashvillelook4me.com/