A woman from St. Cloud, Minnesota was hit by an auto glass repair van last December 20 at the crosswalk located at 5th Avenue and 1st Street. The woman, who was 51 years old, was heading north when she was struck by the auto glass repair van, which was heading west at the same time, at about 15:40 hours.
The auto glass repair van was being driven by the City Auto Glass employee Peter Ramaley. Ramaley, who is 43 years old, hails from Maple Grove and was apparently blinded by the sun at the time, so he was unable to see the victim, Elizabeth Garcia, at the time of the accident. As a result of the incident, Ramaley was cited for failure to yield to a pedestrian at a crosswalk, although he was not held.
The Fifth Ave. and First St. area of St. Cloud’s roads is actually quite hazardous, as many locals know. Those who have never been to the area are likely to doubt the van driver’s words alleging that he could not see the victim at the time of the incident, but those who are familiar with the location shall know that his alibi is actually fairly believable. There are some locals who in fact claim the entirety of St. Cloud to be afflicted with terrible glare, although some insist that there are particular locations where the problem is especially bad, and that the place where the accident took place happens to be one of them. The problem is not necessarily at a peak at all times of the day, but drivers have alleged before that certain times of the morning or afternoon see the drivers in that particular area driving nearly blind, depending on the direction in which they are headed.
This does not excuse the possibility of reckless driving, of course, so not all those who claim that they were unable to see a person that they strike with their cars can be excused so swiftly. Extreme care should still be taken by all drivers who are obliged to pass by locations like this, and various things may be done to that effect. For instance, it is possible to drive a little more slowly when going through such areas, or perhaps to wear dark glasses whenever going through these hazardous locations. Pedestrians, for their part, are supposed to check the streets repeatedly. Such precautions are only common sense if the danger is already known to exist.
Fortunately for the auto glass repair van driver in this case, Garcia was taken very quickly to a nearby hospital and was pronounced to have sustained only light injuries. It could have just as easily been worse. A few more precautions than usual might have prevented the incident on the whole, however.
