An Edmonton man is sharing some startling dash cam video to remind others about the importance of staying alert while driving.
Ryan Collinson posted the video on YouTube on June 2. The dashcam information shows the video was taken at around 1:49 p.m. on the same day.
The 30-second video appears to show the van travel down a residential street at a fairly slow rate of speed when a small child darts out from behind another vehicle parked on the left side of the road.
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In the video, you can see and hear the driver slam on the brakes, just missing the child. It sounds like vehicle’s alert noise sounds and the horn blares. The video shows the little boy run away from the vehicle almost immediately.
After a short pause, you can hear Collinson say: “Oh my God” quietly and ask: “Are you OK?”
Several other children gather on the sidewalk — along with the little boy who points towards the vehicle — and the driver moves the vehicle slowly forward.
“You OK?” Collinson can be heard asking again. “You scared?”
He said the boy went back to playing, while Collinson himself was shaking.
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Under the YouTube video, the user wrote:
“Had I been texting, playing with the radio, or anything, this kid would have been hit for sure. Even just the bubble he was chasing gave me a warning sign that there were kids there. Luckily I wasn’t going any faster either.”
Collinson told Global News it was that soap bubble that alerted him a child might be close and that’s when he started to react.
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“They were just blowing bubbles in the yard and then one floated across the street. He chased it down and just popped out of nowhere,” Collinson said.
“I moved my foot over to the brake and as soon as I moved my foot over, the kid came out from behind the truck. I just slammed down as hard as I could and jerked the wheel.
“I was literally centimetres away from hitting this kid.”
Collinson said the close call happened in the Allard neighbourhood in Edmonton’s far south. That’s near James Mowatt Trail SW and 30 Avenue SW, just west of Highway 2.
He also shared the video on Twitter, adding: “50 km/h down to 30 km/h is a good idea.”
He’d like to see speed limits lowered in residential areas.
“You’ll see a lot of people who will actually just rip down a block, especially in the newer areas where there’s a lot of cars parked on the side of the road,” Collinson said. “It’s hard to see anything around there.
“Drive safe and keep your eyes peeled on the road. Even if you’re in your own driveway just pulling out, don’t look at your phone, pay attention to where you’re going.”
Global News reached out to the little boy’s mother who hadn’t heard about the near miss. The woman’s young daughter then revealed the details, reluctantly. The woman says kids in that neighbourhood are often playing outside and the family will use this as a learning opportunity.