30 minutes after the incident I am just getting over the shakes. I do my shopping in the neighborhood on a two wheeled battery powered scooter. To stay alive I just get used to watching out for dumb dangerous things done by careless drivers. If you want to stay alive you watch everything coming from the direction that can kill or injure you like someone doing a right turn across the pedestrian crossing trying to make the light green when you in the crosswalk are crossing with the light. These are just normal stretching of the rules that if a cop was around would get the driver a ticket. But as cops are not usually around the bad drivers get away with it and it is up to you to stay out of the bad drivers way. That I do pretty well but today just pure luck kept me from getting either killed or badly injured which at my age probably is the same thing. Today though I had all the normal circumstances covered but a driver did something nowhere near the rules of the road. Something you are absolutely unable to forsee. He blew through an intersection from the inside left turn lane reserved for people to turn left before cars going straight through are permitted to go. However he went through high speed when the traffic had the light in the other direction. Not just after it had turned for them but after the left turn cars already completed their turn and the cars crossing the intersection and pedestrians (me in this instance) were crossing. Only because I was not quite going into the middle of the street where the left lane turns did I not get hit by this guy who was probably doing 30. His coming in the left turn lane was hidden by the cars legally waiting for the light in the through lanes. I always watch hidden lanes but this was so unexpected I am not sure I would have seen him in time to stop as the brakes on this scooter are not disk and therefore pretty bad. But this near miss was so unexpected it really scared the heck out of me. This intersection has lots of accidents as it is a major intersection because the main street is a state highway and there is lots of traffic from the shopping center nearby.
I've calmed down but if I was getting complacent before this happened this incident will fix that attitude.
Pedestrians get to see the glazed look on lots of drivers. Drivers who just don't stay alert.
-- --------Fishing in Alaska ---------nowaytofish.blogspot.com --------- Doyal and I put ours on even though we couldn't live more than 10 or 15 minutes in water like that. Too far to swim and the dinghy wouldn't hold us all.--------------- 4 years in 3rd Inf in WW2 billswar.blogspot.com My less heroic contribution. seniorobserver.blogspot.com* KE7PLR Established (born)Aug. 23, 1921
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