3/15/08
Ran 14 miles outside. Was about 22 degrees when I started. With the sun shinning it felt pretty nice so I went without gloves and hat. It was nice heading out, but coming back I was running into a stronger wind than I had expected and it was a bit cold on return trips. Overall it was a good run.
I am going to rant a bit here. Getting back outside reminds me of one of the things I don't like about running outside. The cars. Most people driving have no respect for pedestrians. Today, as I was about to enter the crosswalk, a car turned right in front of me. I was watching and expected it, so I had slowed up some, but not enough and pushed off the car as it went by to come to a complete stop before continueing on. In several other cases I had to run around cars that pull right past the stop sign up to the edge of the road before stopping and then sit there in the middle of the crosswalk.
I would estimate that 10% of cars stop at the stop sign. 90% pull through past the stop sign, past the cross walk and up to the edge of the road. If a vehicle is making a right hand turn, many times they barely slow down and I would estimate 75% never even look to the right at all. I have never seen anyone get pulled over for violating these laws either.
I did have 1 car today that waited for me, even though they could have actually pulled through before I was in the way. I still had to run around another car parked in the stopwalk, but I gave the car that waited for me a friendly wave as I went by.
I had a couple close calls last year, but this was the worst one. I have only 1 intersection I go through with a stoplight. As I was approaching this intersection I had the walk sign. A car was pulling up to a red light to my left as I approached the light. They were making a right hand turn, but they were completely stopped at the red light. I had a walk sign and since they didn't immediately take off to make their right hand turn I assumed I was ok to continue on. There were no cars coming that they were waiting for. I did notice they hadn't looked right, so I was a little concerned. I was directly in front of their vehicle, about 2 feet in front of it, when they decided it was time to go. They excelerated. I was moving fast enough I cleared the remaining distance and turned and watched as I pulled my left foot through, clearing the car by only inches. I then looked up and the driver of the car was looking right at me, probably the first time she had seen me. By then it would have been way too late.
It is just not a very runner friendly area around here.
