Roadguy almost got run over by a car. As in, “had-to-jump-out-of-the-way” almost run over by a car.

I was crossing Washington Avenue at a crosswalk in Seven Corners. I had the walk signal and was proceeding in the normal manner, between the white lines. Roadguy is admittedly not always this perfectly behaved, but there was a lot of traffic going to and from the 10th Avenue Bridge at lunch hour, so I wasn’t messing around.

As vehicles made right turns behind me, it didn’t occur to me that a car coming from the other way might try to make a left turn into me. But suddenly, there it was, coming at me — and accelerating, completely oblivious that I was in its path.

I jumped forward to get out of the way. As a six-foot-two man in a red parka, I was apparently invisible until I started jumping and swearing, because the driver noticed me at the last second and did some swerving and braking.

And how, you may ask, does a driver not see a six-foot-two man in a red parka until the last second? The answer appeared to be in the driver’s hand: he had a hand-held device with a keyboard and a screen. (I could see it because I was only a couple of feet away.)

Once I was safely on the other side of the street, a guy in a pickup truck called out to me. He’d seen the whole thing. “You should’ve hit him with your bag!” he said. I suppose I could have, but I didn’t want to sacrifice my burrito bowl to make a point. Still, with my adrenaline still racing, it was nice to know that someone was on my side (and would have been prepared to testify).

I managed to write down the license plate number, and I even took a picture of the car when it was stopped at the next light — the guy shrugged at me in a slightly exasperated “look, come on, I’m sorry” kind of way. I know it’s the holiday season, and peace and goodwill and all that, but even a day later, I’m finding forgiveness hard to come by. Maybe y’all can help me look deep into my heart, but geez … my life is more important than his text message.

And if you’ve got a near-miss to share, please do so below.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Main, Moron Patrol, Scenes and stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.