I approached the intersection of Selby Lane and El Camino Real cautiously, like many times before. The intersection has a marked crosswalk, but no stop light. I dismounted my bike and waited for the continuous stream of cars to break. The cars in the first two lanes were slowing down for me. I made eye contact with them and started to walk across the six lane road. There were no cars in the third lane. I continued.
Another pedestrian was crossing El Camino from the other side where cars in all three lanes had already stopped. Screeching tires snapped my attention back to the third lane. A big white truck had swerved from the second lane into the third lane and was skidding straight at me.
My muscles tensed as I sprang towards the median while dragging my bike. The truck continued to skid as I made it to the median. Finally, half way into the crosswalk, the truck came to rest. The driver looked down at me from his lifted white truck, shook his head at me, and drove off.
My heart was racing as I stood on the little safe median. One person shouted from their car, “you should call the police!” What would a phone call even do? I’m not sure. I wasn’t in the right state of mind to grab the license plate number and I wasn’t physically injured. Could the driver be charged with unsafe or reckless driving?
Did he swerved out of the second lane to avoid a collision with the stopped cars? Or maybe he switched lanes to avoid stopping without knowing there were us pedestrians crossing a marked crosswalk.
