Gordaen’s Blog

Though the busses are free this week, I continued my regular routine of walking to work. The weather predictions were for upper seventies and it was already warming up and quite sunny. Wearing my shorts and tank-top battle armor, I was ready for anything.

The worst part about walking to work is dealing with all the cars at intersections. People simply don’t pay attention, so you have to have Spiderman-like senses at times. This morning, mine were a little rusty…

I hit the button and waited for the right to cross. The intersection emptied, and the lights changed, giving me the right of way. Just as I was about to step off the sidewalk and start crossing, I saw someone coming up pretty quickly in an SUV on my left. Since I’ve seen plenty of people just rush right (”free right”) through red lights while only looking left, I held my position. Fortunately, he came to a complete stop, so I started to cross about five or six feet in front of his vehicle.

When midway across the front of his SUV, he started moving. I sped up my walking and looked through the windshield. The man was staring to his left. I put up my arms and clapped twice, thinking he would either see the motion out of the corner of his eyes or hear the sound.

He just came straight at me, so I put my arms down quickly, just in time to let my hands and arms absorb the impact from his hood. I’m not sure if I hopped or if the impact was what pushed me into the air, but I landed a few feet away from where I had been (on my feet, fortunately). The airtime moved me out of the SUV’s path, and the sound of the impact between my hands and his hood seemed to catch the driver’s attention. He looked at me for a fraction of a second before speeding off.

If you see a red small-to-mid-sized SUV (maybe a RAV4?) with a Washington license plate of 521SXN, being driven by an Asian man possibly around 45-50 years of age, watch out. He might run you over.