A GRETNA mum has been left shaken after a reckless driver who ran a red light was just “inches” away from hitting her and her two-year-old as they crossed the road earlier this week.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous whilst police enquiries into the incident take place, experienced the terrifying near-miss after picking her daughter up from nursery on Wednesday afternoon.
She said: “It was a reasonable day, so I thought I’d walk with her. We approached the lights, pressed the button to cross the road and the lights changed and it started beeping.
“I’m saying to my little girl ‘come on baby, let’s cross the road’ and I could see the car coming.”
She added that the traffic lights, situated at a junction on Central Avenue, had changed to red whilst the approaching car was still around 200 yards away.
“This man just kept coming right through the red lights,” she said, “so I’m flapping around at him and I grabbed my daughter and whipped her out of the way and he turned right onto Central Avenue – I was screaming at him, I was loopy.
“He’d missed my daughter by inches, she’s tiny, she’s only two.”
The mum believes the driver was also exceeding the 30 mph speed limit.
She said: “He made no effort to slow down or stop at those traffic lights, he just continued to travel. As he turned right onto Central Avenue he stopped his vehicle in the middle of the road and asked me if I had a problem, I said ‘yeah, you nearly killed my daughter you idiot!’, and he said ‘oh I’m terribly sorry’ and drove away.”
Furthermore, the driver told her he thought she was waving her arms as a signal for him to continue through the traffic lights.
She added: “I said: ‘Even if I was waving my hands at you to continue to travel, it’s a red light on the traffic light-controlled stopping’.
“I was terribly, terribly shaken by it and it has deterred me from walking my daughter to school.
“Had I been by myself I would have just left it at a verbal exchange, but nobody compromises the safety of my daughter.”
After reporting the incident to the police, she said the driver has since been identified and enquiries are ongoing.
