Pay attention

I’m a walker and I’m a driver. I think sometimes I get the two mixed up.

The other day I was walking and I came up to some pedestrian crossing lights. I waited on the pavement with other pedestrians. You see, I was obeying the signal that told me when it was safe to cross the road and when it was not.

Imagine my surprise when, as the light turned green and I stepped into the road, that an old woman’s hand grabbed my left sleeve and pulled me back onto the pavement.

“But it’s green!” My protests became weak as a car swung in front of me just missing me by inches as it rounded the corner.

“He must have gone through a red light!” I exclaimed, as I started to walk across the road in the company of my new saviour.

“I just couldn’t manage if I saw someone have a bad accident in front of me,” The kind grey-haired woman continued to shake her head as she walked to the opposite pavement with me. We were both glancing over our shoulders and shaking our heads as we turned in unison to watch the errant car continue to speed off into the distance.

“I know the light was green,” I said, “green for us to walk, not for the car.”

It was then that I thought of my own experience as a driver and the times when I had driven through amber-turning-red lights. Then I was convinced that I was perfectly safe and in  control of all variables.

As I walked further into town I realised that I nearly got run over because I forgot what I sometimes do as a driver!

This incident makes me wonder why it often takes serious incidents to see things from a different perspective before we really commit to changing our behaviour.