My Journey With Health And Fitness – A New Rant About Pedestrian Safety

Back to the gym for the first time in many weeks. I did pretty good getting up at 4:00am and getting ready including breakfast and tea. This is despite the fact that my sister who usually preps my breakfast is down with a horrible code. I got through bootcamp though I admit the weights felt super heavy. I’m not too concerned as it won’t take me long to get myself back to where I was before Mexico.

Yesterday was walk with the senior group day. I hadn’t done that since before Christmas and I missed those ladies. We of course had coffee to start and it was so great to get caught up. We regaled them with stories from our Mexico trip and we had lots of laughs. We also had a chance to get caught up with what is going on in their lives (one of them is going to be a grandmother again this spring). I have to admit I miss these ladies when we are away even though there is often conversations going on via text.

There were 5 of us in the group yesterday including myself and my husband. One of our group is still away on vacation but should be with us again next week. We do have a specific route we follow that normally keeps us safe from traffic. And as often happens a couple of the ladies decided about 2/3 of the way through the walk that they were heading back (my husband always escorts them). I carried on with the 1 remaining walker and it was great.

We were almost back to the start of our route and we were crossing an intersection at a street coming from the mall we were nearly hit by a car. To be clear I have had many near misses where drivers haven’t been paying attention but this was the closest I have ever come to being struck. Now at this intersection you can only do a right hand turn. The driver appeared to be a younger man and had ample opportunity to see us but he was so intent on looking to the traffic on the left he had no idea we were there. To make matters worse as we were trying to back away out of the intersection he kept steering to the car to the right. He came so close to hitting us that the lady I was walking with slammed the hood of his car and he still kept driving towards us which is when I thought for sure we were about to be struck.

I guess the slamming on his hood startled him as he was 3/4 of the way through the intersection when he stopped. My fellow walker and I were quite shaken though I have to laugh about the young woman in the car behind the guy who nearly hit us as she rolled down her window and was shouting about what an idiot he was. I will acknowledge he did roll down his window and shout out ‘sorry’ though I hope he was as shaken as we were.

I know I have done this rant many times before but please, before ever entering an intersection with your car ensure you have clearly checked to make sure there are no pedestrians that you would put at risk. I can’t imagine how horrible you would feel if you injured or killed a pedestrian simply because you wanted to get to your destination a couple seconds sooner. And pedestrians, make sure you are aware every time you pass through an intersection. Please people, let’s keep each other safe.