Yesterday I was crossing Oxford St. via Chebucto, I was at a crosswalk and made sure that little walking man was giving me the go ahead to cross. I don’t know what you were busy doing, but it sure wasn’t looking for pedestrians. As you continued to move towards me, I put my hand on the hood of your car and made eye contact as your foot stayed on the gas. My arm was locked into my shoulder and I stumbled to stay upright, but continued to walk, I was completely in shock. You did not pull over, you did not apologize, you did nothing. And neither did any of the other 15 or so witnesses around us. I got to the other side of the intersection and sat on the ground to catch my breath and calm my nerves. I waited for a while, hoping maybe you would come back to see if I was ok. Nope, you definitely didn’t. I cannot even fathom doing what you did and driving away. Watch the fucking road from now on. —Pissed Pedestrian
This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2011.
Start carrying a Desert Eagle, that’s what I’ve resorted to 😉
Same thing happened to me downtown one day, OP. The driver just did not stop at the stop sign, despite the fact that there was a stop sign, he had plenty of time to stop, and he would have had to stop anyway to merge onto SG – even if I hadn’t been in the crosswalk as he went through it. Sorry that happened to you; it’s incredibly disconcerting and scary.
Dartmouthy’s solution to this problem seems like the only one some days.
Seems it’s a slow day for bitches today…
Many drivers now have hardly ever walked anywhere in their lives. They have no concept at all what being a pedestrian is like. It’s just not their world so they just do not f***ing care. However, they would probably be pissed if we ruined their paint after the crash, and we became like bug juice on their grille and hood. Useless cretins most of them, who would be beyond lost without their wheels.
Hit the hood with the palm of your hand. Gets their attention every time.
as a driver that cares about pedestrians, it is amazing how many pedestrians never make eye contact before stepping on to the road, most don’t even give a quick glance.
For the ones that do look, I always wave to acknowledge their presence.
When it doubt, cross with your keys out. Although I like the Desert Eagle idea. Where’s the handgun store in Dartmouth again?
The driver screwed up and you forgeot what your mother told ya…
Look both ways before you cross the street. Just because you have the right of way doesn’t mean you’re impervious to 2000lbs. of metal.
Next time try and make eye contact with the driver. Sometimes they are just as much in another world as the zombies walking along with Ipods plugged in.
You are supposed to make EYE contact FIRST……..apparently you missed this section in the pedestrian handbook.
OP, you’d be surprised how holding an old key in your hand while legally crossing the crosswalk in hopes of scratching cars that don’t stop will do 🙂 Makes a sweet fucking deep scratch in their paint job. If they stop, call the cops. It’s not your fault they did not yield and that you had your house keys in your hand when you tried to push back from the car that almost hit you.
sebastion, better yet, carry a baseball bat and take out both headlights and windshield. that will teach them.
FYI – becareful lots of drivers also have baseball bats and all sort of other items in their cars as well. You never know you you might end up dealing with, especially these days. Just saying!
Don’t calmly take this kinda shit from drivers. Yell. Loudly. Smash your fist on the hood. Jump up onto the hood if necessary! If this clueless baboon DID NOT STOP once you were in front of the car, they obviously needed to be brought back to attention.
Once you have their attention, you can tell them, in no uncertain terms, just how much of a stupid baboon they are, and make sure you get their license plate number. Maybe they’ll notice when they’re contacted by police.
I bike, and always make sure I let the driver know how they almost killed me, whenever possible.
Sounds to me like you crossed when you clearly didn’t have time to safely make it across the road (car was already too close to intersection) walk sign or not. But pedestrians are entitled to that force field where cars stop on a dime because you push the magic button and are completely fucking oblivious to the surrounding environment… But hey, you went through a crosswalk so it is the drivers fault. If it was safe for you to cross and the car was speeding the car would have flattened you, you wouldn’t have ended up touching the side of the car you would have been under it.
People like this are just too much of a scared pussy to face you and apologize.