It's dark out. FFS!

[mharbourgirl]

!)($&*&%*(@&$(&%&!!&!!!&!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Ok, I've spent a lot of time as a pedestrian over the years. More than I have in a car, that's for sure. I'm on high alert and incredibly paranoid about the difference in mass and potential energy between my fragile body and a moving CAR. Basic survival instinct is strong in my hindbrain, to put it mildly.

I am also an extremely alert and paranoid driver, and that saved a dude's life last night.

So I don't exactly live in the best area of town, but there are worse. What this neighbourhood *does* seem to be infested with is complete and utter morons with the survival instinct of a porcupine - none at all, that is. I'm driving home from the store, maybe 4 city blocks from my apartment, and I stop at the second-last light before my building. I should mention that it's twilight, even worse than full dark because the contrast from oncoming headlights makes it practically impossible to see. Light goes green, I take off. And brake VERY suddenly, because the aforementioned brain-dead doofus is walking across the road in the middle of the block, 10 metres down from the light-controlled crosswalk. Skinny middle-aged man wearing jeans and a black jacket. The only reason I saw him in time to stop is the fact that my lights glared off his half-bald head. He never even looked up, just kept walking with his gaze fixed on the pavement.

DH had to talk me down from the ceiling after I got home, I was so irritated. Granted, everything irritates me lately, but the blatant disregard for one's own skin really gets up my nose. I am not at all happy when people rely on MY brakes (I need new ones, you really shouldn't do that) and MY reflexes (unreliable, it's only my paranoid alertness that makes them work with relative consistency) to keep their sorry skin in one piece.



We are breeding basic survival instinct out of our species. I think we're doomed.

[Draper Mel]

I saw a guy the other evening when I was driving home from the train. He was walking in the gutter where there was no sidewalk, wearing a dark jacket and jeans. Luckily my lights showed him. But he wasn't far from an underpass where the road narrowed, with no shoulder. The traffic was heavy enough that he couldn't count on no cars coming through while he was in there.

I also hate the people who walk in the gutter even when there's a perfectly good sidewalk. WTF?? And also the gangs of teenagers who walk in the middle of the street, like they're daring you to hit them.

[Food Lady]

WTF?? And also the gangs of teenagers who walk in the middle of the street, like they're daring you to hit them.

This. I used to see this all the time when I lived in SoCal.

[BookstoreEscapee]

This sort of thing happens more and more around here, it seems. Today some woman was walking across the middle of the road, halfway between two traffic lights, and came out between the cars that were stopped in the opposite lane (I had turned at the last light, where I had a turn light and the other street was still stopped).

Last night I saw some kid on a skateboard, in the dark, wearing dark clothes, just swooping across the street and back. Idiot.

[mharbourgirl]

Update: I saw the same guy yesterday, crossing at the same intersection again. Ooh look, he's in the crosswalk this time! ... crossing against the light. When I've got the green and should be going.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Update: I saw the same guy yesterday, crossing at the same intersection again. Ooh look, he's in the crosswalk this time! ... crossing against the light. When I've got the green and should be going.

Sadly, that's an every day occurrence in my neighborhood.

Of course, we had people from our neighborhood bitching and moaning back in September b/c a guy was hit by a car at the intersection just south of my house (My Road & Wendover Speedway) and killed.

Yet people still continue to do this.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Jeez... whenever I'm walking home in the dark, I'm on the pavement whenever possible and wearing my hoodie with its glow in the dark pictures. My mum was happy when I bought that hoodie, cuz I have to walk home along the high street and it made her glad that I was now glowing in the dark. XD

However, the amount of idiots who wander into the road makes me want to scream. Back when I rode my motorbike to work, I often had to slam on my brakes cuz some dickhead dawdled in front. And let's not even get into the amount of cyclists, helmet and protective gear free, who seem to have a death wish around where I live.