Hey, who took my daylight away and now what?

RantWoman notes by way of epigraph first that it is now getting dark at the shockingly early hour of 9 pm and second that this has been a bad week for car vs ped accidents in Seattle with one in Ballard and one on Meridian Avenue north serious enough to send someone to the trauma hospital even though there is another hospital two blocks from the scene of the accident. RantWoman notes that both accidents occurred in daylight and pointedly does not want to speculate on other issues including some she cannot completely analyze from Google pics. RantWoman does wish those hospitalized thorough and speedy recovery and will now resume her lament for late summer's receding daylight.



RantWoman is chagrined to note the number of times in a given week she is at high risk of becoming a car vs ped statistic herself. Today's was some sort of luxury car that, in broad daylight, floorboarded a left turn as a whole flock of pedestrians including RantWoman was just shy of the center line on Alaskan Way. If RantWoman had been in the front wave instead of hanging back, RantWoman suspects that Thwack the Cane would have had one of his episodes of Percussive Pedagogy, the car was that close.



The episode that most drew RantWoman up short happened a few days ago at the corner by RantWoman's building. RantWoman was coming home about 9 pm which sadly by now is heavy dusk. Thwack the Cane was being indolent, lounging in RantWoman's bag, an urge RantWoman was indulging because after all she knows her way around near her building. Hah!



That night, just as RantWoman started across the last street before her building, a big white SUV came barreling around the corner. RantWoman was already in the crosswalk and the SUV cut the left turn so tight the driver basically turned into what was going to be the oncoming lane. RantWoman thinks the car was close enough that if Thwack had been working, the cane might have hit the car. RantWoman was flustered and yelled at the driver "Thank you very much for observing the crosswalk."



Bear in mind, the driver had already made a screwy left turn either because she did in fact see RantWoman or because she was driving very sloppily. Anyway, the driver yelled back that she had not seen RantWoman and RantWoman gulped. RantWoman had in fact gotten sloppy about reflector gear over summer's recent long lingering sunsets. In the wintertime, RantWoman typically wears a coat with reflector tags front and back and sometimes extra bands on wrists or ankles. During the summer RantWoman of course does not wear a coat much. Recently at the http://www.csbps.org/ store RantWoman even decided to try out a small bright orange light clipped to something around RantWoman's neck but it had not yet occurred to RantWoman to turn the light on when she is out in the evenings. In other words, whatever the SUV driver had done or not done, RantWoman ALSO needed the admonishment to pay attention to her own visibility.

Okay, to that end, RantWoman has a thing about checking out reflector gear. Anytime RantWoman meets someone with especially impressive reflective measures on a bag or an item of clothing, RantWoman has to gush and exclaim and inquire about the item's provenance and how can RantWoman get one too. Lately RantWoman's friends all seem to have rocking reflective vests. Some state agencies for the blind or large of employers buy such vests. RantWoman knows some wheelchair users who also get seriously reflective vests.

RantWoman has a small problem with reflective vests: they basically scream traffic flagger, road construction, or perhaps some kind of public safety professional. RantWoman considers all of these entirely honorable and even impressive lines of work. However, when RantWoman thinks of reflector gear, practical and no-nonsense as RantWoman generally is, RantWoman still has this fantasy. RantWoman envisions the sort of design elements that would draw gasps of admiration from the fashion-conscious at the symphony but that also, just as a sideline happen to be ANSI compliant for visibility at 200 feet. Okay, so a girl can dream.