At the corner of Highland Drive and 1100 East is a busy intersection with a stop light and pedestrian crossing. I was at the end of my second mile repeat and pushing it fairly hard, with about 10 seconds to go. Basically I just had to get across the intersection. I checked the light 4-5 steps before I was to cross and it was green, but the pedestrian guy was red. There were no cars in the right turn lane to my left so I thought I was clear to cross. I kept my eye on the light, and just before I was to step into the crosswalk, I heard an engine to my left and a little purple car came flying by, and turned sharply in front of me as my foot was just about to leave the sidewalk. I'd like to say that this has never happened before, but unfortunately it has and at this same intersection. Sometimes I don't do anything, but a couple times I've reached out and smacked the side of the car as it pulled in front of me. Obviously it's close if I can smack it as it drives by. On this occasion I gave it a nice smack to let the driver know that I was there and that his behavior wasn't appreciated. He slammed on his brakes in the middle of the lane, yelled at me as I crossed (and maybe gestured something in his direction) and then kept on along 1100 East.
About 100 yards farther down 1100 East is a cross street where you can cut back up to Highland Drive. As I approached this cross street, my friend in the purple car was waiting for me. He was significantly bigger than me at 6'4" and very angry. Before I was even close he started yelling at me that he had the right of way and how dare I, blah blah. As I got closer I responded -somewhat calmly I thought- that it was a green light, I was in the process of stepping off the sidewalk and that I had the right of way. That's when he shoved me and yelled that I didn't have the right of way, the pedestrian guy was red . I stepped back, told him I'd put a real dent in his car and call the cops if he touched me again and turned to run off. He said go ahead and shoved me in the back. For a split second I thought about throwing a right cross to knock his old a** out, but thought better of it - who knows if he had taken his meds-and yelled to him that he had a lot to learn about life and common etiquette.
As I ran away fuming about the situation and thinking of the perfect things to say to him that I didn't think of at the time (we all do that, right? How many times does the perfect comeback come to you in the heat of battle?) I started thinking that maybe I really had been in the wrong. Sometimes I find myself with the attitude that the pedestrian is always right and just run along expecting everyone else to watch out for me. Maybe I shouldn't have pushed it to cross the street to finish my mile. After all, how critical were those final 10 seconds?
Anyway, just some thoughts and I'd love to get any opinions.
