Today I almost died. Alright, that’s an exaggeration. But I did almost get hit by a taxi. Here’s how:
I started crossing 5th Avenue right where 5th and Broadway collide on 23rd street. The man was white, the hand then started to flash, then as I was about 5 feet from the sidewalk the hand stopped flashing and this cab driver comes around the corner, making a right onto 5th Ave.
As I take my last few steps to the sidewalk, this turd of a human jerks his cab forward closer to my legs and honks all while yelling something angrily (his windows were up, though I’m sure it was poignant and eloquent).
A few things.
1) If the hand has stopped, the light is either yellow or red for opposing traffic. I’ve come to observe when the hand stops flashing there is approximately 5 seconds of yellow light time to cross the street. This means that he was either running a red light, or, not yielding to yellow.
2) I am a pedestrian in a cross-walk going with traffic. I have the right of way.
3) Right on Red is NOT permitted in New York City as far as I know.
This has happened to me so often in this city. These morons run the red lights to make their turn, and then yell at the people who are most of the way across the street, honking at them like a horny goose, and then make threatening motions with their vehicles as if to say “You’re obeying commonly known traffic-law! Die!”
A guy in a Verizon van (don’t even get me started on Verizon) did this to me a while back and had the audacity to stop his fan and scream at me after I made a loud remark about which part of a butt I thought he was.
Listen up assholes. YOU are running a light. YOU are making an illegal turn. I have the right of way. Just give me the extra 5 seconds to get across the street. You’ve already stuck your stupid jerk-face b-hole into the intersection and congested traffic, so you are just going to have to deal with being “that guy” while I take the two steps it takes me to get to the curb and out of your way.
The best part is when these morons get all worked up only to find when they come around the corner, they can only get about another foot because the traffic is backed up to the cross-walk already. So now they are sitting in the middle of the cross-walk and breaking yet another traffic law.
After all this crap elapsed I began thinking about a great new invention: Cab-Bashers. If you’ve ever seen a pair of Hulk Hands (and by God, I hope you have as they are about the coolest thing ever), they’d be like that. Only made of titanium. If a cab pulls a jerk move, just smash down on the hood. Case closed. Engine ruined. Cabbie enraged. Andy? Satisfied.
I always smack cars when they come too close with me, even if they DO have the green light but are just trying to make a turn around the pedestrian’s crossing the street. If you’re in smackin’ range, you get a smackin’.. that’s what I always say.
I considered that, but it just doesn’t do enough damage for me. Maybe I’ll start spitting on their cars or something so at least they have to do some work to clean up after their idiocy.
The drivers aren’t looking. I’m nearly run over at a crosswalk (when the cars had a red light) at least once a month.
Well, at least they aren’t deranged juiceheads who actually LEAVE their cars in the middle of the intersection to fight you for crossing the street WITH the white crossing guy.
It’s amazing, really.