Children of Men

The universe is indifferent but we are not.

Yesterday while driving home from work I saw a boy hit by a car.

I was heading West on Fell near Pierce looking down the Alamo Square hill towards Divisadero. I was about 10 cars back, my clear view enabled by lane-splitting and being on a scooter.

The boy looked ~12 years old. He was in a hoodie and was carrying a backpack and a stack of books. When the light was red he crossed the street and mid-way dropped what looked to be a piece of paper. He reached the other side of the street and the light changed.

Three rows of cars had made it through the intersection when he bolted back into the street into moving traffic, somehow making it between two rows of full-speed rush-hour traffic to turn around, bend over to pick up the piece of paper, at which point he was clipped by a station-wagon sending him spinning a good ten feet.

Cars had already begun stopping prior to the collision and by the time the boy had staggered upright, every car was stopped with the first three to four rows parked while drivers and passengers exited, racing towards him.

Based on the way he was walking he looked to have a broken leg or ankle.

The crowd gathered around the boy; many on cell-phones presumably dialing 911. The orderly, uniform and un-selfish response of those involved (forty some-odd cars in rush-hour traffic) I hope and believe isn’t unique to San Francisco.

“Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past; without hope of a future he becomes a beast.”
― P.D. James, The Children of Men