As I was driving to Safeway today, I was waiting at the light on Bernardo crossing El Camino Real, just thinking about something else with my eyes looking at the light, when I heard a loud crunch. I shifted my eyes about 10 degrees left and saw a cloud of debris explode from the front of a car turning left from the other side of Bernardo onto El Camino. The entire front of the car had exploded; the cars stopped and the driver of the damaged car got out. The light changed then, and I crossed the intersection (avoiding the glass field) and went on to Safeway.
45 minutes later, I returned to the intersection. An ambulance, two police cars, and a fire truck were there, as well as two tow trucks loading two vehicles. An injured man lay on a stretcher in the median strip. A fireman kneeled over him, talking to him gently. It was apparent from the arrangement of the vehicles that one had run the red light, just clipping the front of the other.
The point to be taken here is that I didn't see the car that ran the red light AT ALL even though I was looking across its path, and by the time my attention moved to the car which was hit by it, it was beyond my field of vision. While I know in this case that I didn't really see the accident, I remember everything vividly after I realized it was happening. Which is why eyewitness testimony about sudden, unexpected events is highly suspect, and should be disregarded unless it's corroborated.
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