Mind the Street Sign

Today I was basically hit while crossing the street on the way home from school. It wasn't serious, but it was enough to shake me up a little.

I was crossing just south of campus, and saw the car coming from about 100 yards away, but he seemed to be slowing to the stop sign, and I thought surely he could see the pedestrian immediately in front of him. I had kind of stopped paying attention to the oncoming car when I realized he was REALLY close to me and still hadn't stopped! If I had started crossing two seconds earlier he would have barely missed me, but as it was he did actually roll into me and I barely had time to react. He pushed my legs out from under me sideways and as my hands slammed onto his hood I caught myself from falling. He finally hit the brakes and he and the girl next to him in the car looked at me with enormous eyes and mouths forming perfect, astonished "O" shapes. I just looked at them like, "Uh... yeah," and kept walking. They seemed pretty embarrassed, but probably relieved they were rolling and not speeding on through the sign. I actually wasn't really upset with them, just kind of amazed that they could possibly not have noticed me in such broad daylight and with such ample warning. It's not like I ran out into the street at the last second or dashed onto a crosswalk with no stop sign. Everything about the situation should have been completely uneventful.

I actually walked away thinking that there are probably times I should rethink my personal bad habit of rolling through the occasional stop sign...