Moses Martín

We have an epidemic of bad driving occurring here in Fallbrook and across Southern California. People run stop signs and red lights with impunity.

Yesterday as I tried to walk across the street at the crosswalk to get lunch, a large welding truck barreled through the red light. I had the green right of way but two cars then whipped around the corner and would not allow me to enter the crosswalk.

There is absolutely no respect for pedestrians.

Last week a young man was hit in this intersection. He was hospitalized. Unfortunately they took him off life support this past Sunday. 

As I left coffee this morning I saw two Guatemalan women standing near the corner. Not doing anything, just standing there. They looked to be in emotional pain, sitting shiva. Their anguish was palpable. I called across the street and asked them if they were connected to the man who had been hit. They said that they were. I crossed the street and asked if I could talk to them.

They told me that the deceased man's name was Moses Martín. 

He was only twenty nine, single, no immediate family or children. 

She was his cousin. She said that he used to work at the Shell Station on Mission.

The cops told her it was an accident, nothing more. 

According to this woman, the woman who hit her cousin said that she told the cops that she didn't think she had hit anything. 

I guess they let the driver go on her way.

Who will miss a poor young immigrant anyway?

This woman said that she thinks the woman might have been distracted, perhaps texting on her phone.

The cops said that she can come by and pick up the effects that were on his person. She has not done so as yet. I asked if I could take her picture and she assented.

That is all.

There is no go fund me site, nothing. She is not looking for a payday. She is trying to make sense of a senseless incident, to obtain some rational answer or finality but unfortunately it will probably never come. So she is standing near the spot of his demise and trying to soak in the last remaining memories of her cousin out there in the ether and probably doing a considerable amount of praying.

A young man struck down in his prime, by somebody in a hurry or not paying attention, an immigrant gone. A man who will probably soon disappear from our collective memories without a trace, another statistic. There have been several of these types of deaths on Main and Mission the last several years and many crashes at this intersection. We get desensitized. My wife tells customers that it is safer not to use the crosswalk.

So tragic.

You would think that they could at least put up a red light camera.

Two days ago a speeding truck went off the 15 near Rainbow, ran into a tree, killing the driver. Another man hit the median at Winchester and Margarita yesterday, driving at a high rate of speed, also dead.

You see how kids drive on the freeway these days, they slingshot out of the outside lanes like they are playing a video game. The consequences of their actions are so sudden and so permanent. And they affect everybody.

And we lose more innocent lives every day, people like Moses. And leave so many others, like these two poor women, in emotional pain forever. 

Moses, may the four winds blow you safely home.