So I’m walking to an evening class at a local college, it’s dark. There’s a bend just before the junction and as I’m walking across a car comes round way too fast. I had to step back to avoid being hit. I was wearing gloves and as it went past I hit it, no idea why, just instinct and anger.
I carry on walking and I see the driver has pulled over a bit down the road, I was expecting a “sorry are you ok” but she instead shouted “did you just hit my car?”. That set me off, shouting at her that she almost fucking ran me over. Then she says “you don’t have to use that kind of language”, the fucking nerve.
Gave up and just walked off. Wish I’d have smashed the wing mirror or keyed the car or something.
Has anyone else almost been run over and how do you deal with the anger of it?
I can’t say I remember this ever happening to me with a car (regularly with e-scooters and bicycles, which isn’t as bad and also besides the point). You know why I think that is? They actually enforce traffic rules over here. Get caught almost killing a pedestrian, and you can be pretty sure you’ll lose your license. There’s speed cameras and random speed checks everywhere too. Slightly too fast is expensive, clearly too fast makes you lose your license (either immediately or eventually, depending on severity), and driving obscenely fast will make you also lose your car. Not all drivers have their own sense of accountability, so it’s critical that we force them to have one.
Where is that? Here in the UK, whilst nowhere near as bad as the US, the sentences drivers get for even intentionally running someone over are laughable.
I live kinda half-half in Austria and Switzerland