Near death experience

Not mine, luckily. This morning, in the darkness and rain, I saw a woman come oh so close to being completely obliterated by a car. The reason it was so striking is because I watched My Name is Earl last night, and there were not one but two hit,smash,roll over car moments (one oh so clearly digitalized, but such is life, or TV that is). It is what would have happened to this woman. Except, unlike TV, she would not have survived.

I live off of a main road that comes off the highway. For about a 1/4-1/2 of a mile it's 4 (5?) lanes on either side. On one side is a shopping center where commuters park and have to cross over the road to get to the commuting location. People used to cross everywhere, even when they started ticketing them periodically. So they had to erect a concrete barrier to force people to cross at the crosswalk.

Even crossing at the crosswalk, you get used to a certain cycle of the lights. After the green left arrow from the shopping center, the street across gets to go. So most people, including me, walk to the center to wait for the light, and then walk the rest of the way once the light has changed.

This morning there was no car at the vital final light that allows pedestrians to finalize the crossing, so to be safe I ran across. But the other people in the middle did not. The reason I knew this is because I heard a truck horn blow, turned my head, and saw a woman not get hit by a truck and keep running beyond it without stopping to think that she might not see another car coming due to the size of the truck. And there was a car flying down the road. I swear the car missed her by a foot. Luckily there was no other car flying down the road and she made it across. Yes, live frogger.