I don’t think I’m alone in saying I sometimes think about how I might die. Thoughts range from the peaceful (dying in my sleep in old age) to the sad (after a long illness with cancer) and to the dramatic (in something resulting in a newspaper front page).

One of the thoughts that’s always been with me is the fear of being wiped out by a car or a truck or a bus while standing on the footpath, waiting to cross the road. It’s the reason why I always stand a few feet back from the road when crossing the road, or why I always walk in the middle of other pedestrians.

Tragically, some poor man has died today in such circumstances. As I wandered through Chinatown this afternoon there were lots of people, lots of police, and a rather large bus stuck underneath the awning of a restaurant on the corner of Dickson Street. I later found out there was a man underneath that bus, having been caught in the accident in just the kind of circumstances I fear myself. Best wishes to his family and friends in this terrible, freaky, accident.