Yesterday, I could have killed someone. No, obviously not intentionally. I was driving on my scooter going back home from gym, it was raining and, as the traffic lamp on the corner between via Torino and via Nazionale went green I turned right, did let an old woman who was late crossin gover the zebra lines pass, accelerated slightly and... crashed against someone. I didn't see him crossing and for that matter no one did. As far as I can tell, he was lying in the middle of the street, out of the crossing line, in a dark spot of the street and a bottle of beer rolling away and his heavy breath suggested he was more than a bit drunk. And a gipsy.
Now, that he was a gipsy wouldn't had mattered really if 30 seconds later I wouldn't had found myself surrounded by a dozen other pretty menacing gipsies (where they did come from, I have no idea... one moment no one was around, the moment later they were all around me). Good for me I was too busy calling an ambulance and the police to actually think about anything else and that two other scooter drivers who were behind me at the moment of the impact stayed to be witnesses of what happened and possibly to avoid me being lynched on the spot.
Anyway, the ambulance came (actually, two of them as the first to arrive was not the one I had called, but just one passing by), took the guy and brought him I do not know where without even identifying him. A good 10 minutes later (and a good half a hour after the incident, with the police station being no more than 500 meters away) the city police came, took my version, the one of the two witnesses (who, good for me, confirmed that the lamp was green, that they hadn't seen anyone cross either, that I had hit the break, that the beer bottle rolling was the one of the victim and that I tried immediatly to help him) and that was it, considering the other gipsies who were with the one I collided against disappeared as soon as the police arrived. So I do not even know the name of the person.
Now, I know it was probably not my fault (besides anything else, I was going so slowly not even the plastic forward of my scooter broke), I know that I did all I could afterwards and here I am wondering if I did hurt him for real and what's going to happen now because despite everything, i know I could have huge troubles out of this. The police quite calmly said that I could have gone asking in 20 days (TWENTY!) at the station if a charge against me had been filed and that anyway the report abou tteh incident would had been ready in 90 (NINETY!!!) days.
But that's not the main point. The main point is... I'd like to know if I did hurt him for real and I shall stay with this doubt for weeks, possibly months. Three cheers for italian bureocracy.
And today is a grey day and is raining again.
Now, that he was a gipsy wouldn't had mattered really if 30 seconds later I wouldn't had found myself surrounded by a dozen other pretty menacing gipsies (where they did come from, I have no idea... one moment no one was around, the moment later they were all around me). Good for me I was too busy calling an ambulance and the police to actually think about anything else and that two other scooter drivers who were behind me at the moment of the impact stayed to be witnesses of what happened and possibly to avoid me being lynched on the spot.
Anyway, the ambulance came (actually, two of them as the first to arrive was not the one I had called, but just one passing by), took the guy and brought him I do not know where without even identifying him. A good 10 minutes later (and a good half a hour after the incident, with the police station being no more than 500 meters away) the city police came, took my version, the one of the two witnesses (who, good for me, confirmed that the lamp was green, that they hadn't seen anyone cross either, that I had hit the break, that the beer bottle rolling was the one of the victim and that I tried immediatly to help him) and that was it, considering the other gipsies who were with the one I collided against disappeared as soon as the police arrived. So I do not even know the name of the person.
Now, I know it was probably not my fault (besides anything else, I was going so slowly not even the plastic forward of my scooter broke), I know that I did all I could afterwards and here I am wondering if I did hurt him for real and what's going to happen now because despite everything, i know I could have huge troubles out of this. The police quite calmly said that I could have gone asking in 20 days (TWENTY!) at the station if a charge against me had been filed and that anyway the report abou tteh incident would had been ready in 90 (NINETY!!!) days.
But that's not the main point. The main point is... I'd like to know if I did hurt him for real and I shall stay with this doubt for weeks, possibly months. Three cheers for italian bureocracy.
And today is a grey day and is raining again.
No comments:
Post a Comment