Rant: Near miss at 35th & Avalon

[CMP]

To the man in the dumpy old white pickup truck that almost hit me this morning (7:00 am on 6/7/16) at 35th & Avalon: in case you didn’t hear me yelling at you when you almost hit me in the crosswalk, here it is again: “Screw you, jerk”. Only I sounded much more like a sailor this morning so I’m trying to keep this clean on the forum. I walk and run around West Seattle a lot since I’m a bus commuter and that’s the closest I’ve ever been to being hit in my life as a pedestrian. It scared the crap out of me and as a pregnant woman, I’m still upset about it. I had a walk signal and was heading from Taco Time over to KFC crossing Avalon and you were driving north on 35th and turning westbound onto Avalon. Once I got the walk sign I could sense that you were going to make a left turn yet you didn’t even bother to use a turn signal. Right when I’m getting across the bike lane portion you just went for it almost hitting me. I had to run out of the way because you clearly weren’t going to yield to any oncoming traffic or a pedestrian. I guess getting in line at Starbucks for coffee is more important than following traffic laws or you just like scaring the crap out of pedestrians who are trying to get to work. You shouldn’t be driving because you’re a self-important prick. I had to vent on the forum since this was a close call and my hormones are probably out of control…pregnant or not though, I’d still be livid!

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[JoB]

I am glad you are alive to rant about this
so is the driver of the white pickup if he only thought about it

i don’t know what it is about being behind the wheel of a car that makes people forget that their access to that next small fragment of pavement ahead of them is not more important than the safety of both drivers and pedestrians around them.

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[miws]

Wow. Sorry you had to experience this, CMP.

I’m a Professional Pedestrian, and like you, am very observant of my surroundings, and try to be prepared for the totally unexpected when it comes to driver behavior. But sometimes, no matter how careful one is, there will still be close calls.

I’m glad you were able to jump out of the way. Not being as agile as I used to be, one of my biggest fears is getting nailed because I couldn’t physically jump out of the way quickly enough, or be injured in a fall when trying to do so.

I do have one “Pedestrian Victory” from around 13 or so years ago, and just a block north.

I was on my way to work at Seattle FilmWorks, (where Zaw Pizza now is), and was crossing 35th from the little traffic island to the Taco Time corner.

After waiting for, and finally getting the walk signal, I looked over my right shoulder to make sure nobody was turning left off of the Fauntleroy Expressway, which had just gotten the red light.

All clear.

Start across, and all of a sudden eastbound traffic is slamming on brakes, and horns honk. Some idiot blew through a very red light. They didn’t run over my toes, but I was pretty close to halfway across by then.

Sweet revenge, and probably keeping me from running down to the next light where the moron actually stopped for a red light and ripping them a new one (yes, I was that rattled and angry). was a motorcycle officer behind the first or second eastbound car. He hit the lights a siren and whipped around the other traffic to nail the person. He couldn’t have done that in a cruiser, and the person may have gotten away.

I just hope he nailed them with a heavy ticket, and not just a warning.

Mike

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[CMP]

That is a good story, Mike, I’m glad that you were okay and that the driver was caught (and hopefully issued a hefty ticket)! Still, it does rattle the nerves quite a bit with close calls and makes us be even more observant as pedestrians and drivers.

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[Author]

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