“a message to the driver of the car that nearly hit me in a crosswalk yesterday afternoon”

photo by John Brighenti

“Dear PoPville,

It was around 1:30pm on Tuesday, in the crosswalk coming up from the Mt. Vernon trail to enter the Arlington National Cemetery circle. I was running on the trail and needed to cross the road. The car in the first lane stopped because they saw me – so I didn’t hit the button to trigger the flashing yellow lights on the crosswalk sign.

The car in the left lane did not stop – or at least not until I basically ran into the back of their car as they slammed on their brakes. They did pull over and make sure I was okay (with windows and doors closed) but all I had the capacity to do was flip them off.

I wished I had said “f*ck you, but thank you for stopping – and for not hitting me.” We read about all these hit and runs on this forum, and I should have been more grateful for my near miss having the decency to stop.

Moral of the story: actually be prepared to stop at busy crosswalks and runners hit those yellow lights for the 2nd lane of cars“