Something similar, although less dramatic happened to me once. I came to a red light during my morning commute, there were few cars ahead of me. I normally wait for the light and either go straight or make a right turn. This is an industrial area with empty sidewalks so I decided that time to ride on the sidewalk and across small parking lot to get ahead and away from the cars and once I made my right and was back on the road I heard tires skidding and a crash behind me, right at that intersection: somebody blew a light and plowed into the car that was two cars ahead of me. It would be unlikely that I'd get hit but it'd scare the crap out of me if I was still at that intersection.