By CHAR PHILLIPS

The moment islanders dread hearing about came last week: a serious injury along the roadside.

This time it was a horseback rider on a quiet street, approached from behind by a loud car that came too close and startled the horse into jumping out from under her. The driver continued on downhill without stopping.

This accident will hopefully serve as another reminder about safely navigating our island roads, which can be shared by vehicles and pedestrians alike if both are careful and aware.

These are the facts about our very caring, small-island community:

We live on what is essentially the top of a mountain sticking out of Puget Sound. Thus our home has minimal flat ground, few streets or roads that are not dead end, and steep hills with blind curves and drop-offs. As citizens, we constantly search for improvements that will protect some without increasing the danger to others.

We are a rural, outdoor-loving population of people who walk, jog, exercise dogs, bicycle and ride horses along the roads because it is often the only way to get from point A to point B.

We pave some of the road shoulders to help the non-motorized wheeled vehicles and leave other shoulders as dirt to help those on foot or horseback who would like a softer, less-slippery surface.

We accept the placing of guard rails on some drop-offs and curves, so long as they do not trap pedestrians, bicyclists and horses directly in the speeding traffic.

We try to think to slow for the non-automotive traffic, including deer.

So what goes wrong?

This weekend there was a major bicycle event on the island. I was coming downhill on a curving road, with multiple bicycle riders struggling uphill in the opposite lane. Car drivers from below were trying to beat me by circling into my lane around the bikers, intending to be back in their own lanes before I, pulling a heavy trailer downhill, impacted them. My question was, if any driver miscalculated, would he or she have hit me head-on?   Or swerved back to his own lane and swept the bikers off the road?

Most of us feel that the seemingly careless drivers, sometimes speeding and sometimes not, are not malicious but simply unaware or unthinking. They feel that if they pull out a little away from the person they are passing, they can safely pass at 30, 40 or 50 mph. They may know it is not safe to go past a deer, who cannot be trusted to stand still, but they are not thinking about the rare moment when a horse startles, a bicycle hits a pothole, a child stumbles, a dog wanders into the street.

We road-siders would like to propose that drivers think seriously about how quickly they could stop if someone unexpectedly ended up on the road in front of their car. When we drive, we are in the armored vehicle. A single tap of a fender or bumper against a person or an animal’s leg can be serious and even fatal when the car is moving fast. More than one island horse has been destroyed after such a glancing blow. And please think about how an animal or bicyclist or pedestrian feels when an automobile or truck passes suddenly so close that the wind whips their clothing. It feels like an impact, and everyone who has experienced it shudders at the recollection. That was your life, or your death, going by.

As for the few drivers who are truly malicious, those who deliberately swoop their cars toward someone on the shoulder or throw objects out the window to see what animals will do, the community will need to ponder how to deal with them if someone dies or is terribly injured.

Most of us riders, bikers, walkers and joggers are also automobile drivers. Hopefully we are as thoughtful behind the wheel as we wish drivers to be when we are vulnerable along the road’s edge. Because that’s what we are — at the mercy of drivers. Please, slow down. Watch. Take your foot off the gas for those few seconds it takes to pass. Look at what is happening. It’s not worth gaining five seconds if you hit someone.

Pedestrians on the side of the road can also take some measures to protect themselves. Among equestrians, we urge people to not only wear something bright or reflective, but also to try to catch the eye of the driver. Some riders wave their hands or put a cloth on the end of a riding whip to wave into the lane so drivers take notice. We smile, wave, thank them when they slow down.

So who is responsible for the safety of non-motorized people on the edge of the roads? The answer is we all are.

— Char Phillips is a former leader of the Rock Riders horse 4H club and president of Vashon-Maury Island Horse Association.