I nearly ran over a guy yesterday when driving home from work, and the event has instilled in me the madness of Lady MacBeth.

Walking the Dog

I nearly ran over a guy yesterday when driving home from work, and the event has instilled in me the madness of Lady MacBeth.  I can hardly stop thinking about it.

Basically, I was driving down Washington Ave. on my way home as I usually do.  I was snowing and the roads were a bit slippery in places, but that didn't really affect this incident.  It was about 5:30 or so, and the darkness of winter had already set in.  I approached the intersection where Washington crosses Green Street.

Actually stopping at the crosswalk I noticed nobody in the intersection, and proceeded to pull through.  Suddenly, a dog appeared in front of my car!  I slammed down my breaks.

He was a black dog, perhaps some small breed of lab, just kind of staring at me from in front of my radiator grill.  My first thought upon seeing this dog was perhaps, "Where did he come from?" followed quickly by "He must be an unleashed dog escaped from a nearby yard who just ran in front of my car."  That's when the guy turned his head toward my car and started yelling.

He was standing just behind the dog, in front of my car, yelling out something to the effect of, "Damn, you nearly ran me over!"  Actually, I think it was more profane, but that was the sentiment.  He was sporting a trimmed beard on his face - a face that seemed to float in the air above the hood of my car.

Obviously, I was quite startled.  Upon further inspection, I noted that this man's head was not in fact disembodied, but wrapped in the hood of an ink black jacket.  This jacket completely obscured his person from view.  With his head facing the direction he was walking, there was no way I would have seen his face, which was the only thing on him that reflected any light.

His shoes were grimy, his pants were black, he wore this black jacket with his hood up, the leash with which he controlled his dog was also black, and so was his dog.  On top of all of that, my memory tells me that the street lamp on that corner was out.  I didn't even see this guy's jacket until he walked in front of my right-side headlight toward the curb.

A strange argument ensued.  We just kind of yelled at each other.  I originally told the guy that I was sorry - I simply didn't see him, probably because everything about him was the color of the surrounding night.  Upon reflection, he must have been in shock from nearly being run over, because he simply focused on the "nearly run over" part, ignoring my attempts at apology and explanation, and proceeded to hurl profane insults.

It's pretty clear that had I hit either him or his dog, the police and insurers probably would see it as my fault.  But I ask you, if you make every effort not to be seen at night in bad road conditions and cross the street in front of cars where there is little light, aren't you giving up a lot of your expectation to remain tire tread-free?  In my mind, it's akin to wearing a bullseye T-shirt in a room full of people holding water balloons.

In spite of all that has transpired, I have decided to try to make amends for this incident that can't be entirely my fault.  Of course, coming up with a way to say, "Gee, I'm sorry I almost ran you over," is not an easy task.  However, I stopped at PetSmart and picked up a light-up reflective leash.  The leash itself is black, so as not to conflict with his current sense of style, but one side contains a yellow reflective material like those I've seen on firefighter jackets.  Embedded within this reflector is a chain of red LEDs that can be set to blink or remain on constantly.

Hopefully, I'll see him again on the road to be able to give him this leash, and hopefully he finds it an adequate penance for his near-squishedness.