I had one of those surreal events happen today, the kind that make you stop and reconsider if what you thought was happening was actually so. Driving to pick my son up from school, I approached a large intersection. The light in my direction was green with the cars up ahead of me, several of them, already having made their way through the intersection. Then, from off to our right, a car proceeded into the intersection, despite their light being red. Thankfully, the car in front of me saw what was happening with enough time to slam on their brakes to avoid collision. Likewise, I hit my brakes.
Sitting there, our cars stopped, the driver in front of me and I looked at where the red-light running vehicle had come from, then back into the intersection, and off to our left where the driver had continued, making a turn. Regardless that I knew that our light was green, the absolute nonchalance with which the driver had run their red light, made me take a second look at ours.
Yup, still green.
I shot one last look at the offending vehicle, locking on its driver who was absolutely clueless as to the chaos they’d caused, obliviously putting along, as if they were the only one on the road.
The car in front of me began accelerating, and I followed suit. And again, although I was certain my light was and had been green, I had to look up at it on last time. Confirming that it was green, I glimpsed back at the signal in the other direction, wondering if perhaps it was also green, this despite my having noted that the cars in that direction were waiting patiently behind their line, indicating they had a red light.
Nope, theirs is definitely red. Hmmm….
Leaving the intersection and near miss in my wake, I found myself chuckling at how odd the situation had been. That there had been no honking of horns. No screeching tires. No swerving cars—wasn’t necessary. No mouthing of, “I’m sorry,” by the driver of the red light runner. And perhaps strangest of all, that the offending driver wasn’t on a cell phone, reading a newspaper, eating, shaving, or any host of other things that could have taken their mind off their driving. In fact, they didn’t even have passengers who could have distracted them.
Everything was fine, my heart rate eventually resumed its normal pace, and life carried on without incident, my arriving at my son’s school about ten minutes later and sharing with him what had happened. Just another case of a driver not paying attention….
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