Drama In The Crosswalk

Walking along J Street, I approached 13th Street just as the light changed. Suddenly, I heard a woman shouting: "hey, Hey, HEY!" I glanced left and saw an African-American woman in a motorized wheelchair in the crosswalk, halfway across J Street, just as an SUV turning from 13th Street barreled straight towards her.

Suddenly, the driver saw and heard the woman and came to a sudden halt, with the driver's hands flying from the steering wheel as the vehicle lurched to a stop.

With a mixture of terror, relief, and protest, the woman in the wheelchair shouted "SHIT!"

The woman continued crossing the street and approached three business people waiting at the stop light; two men and a woman. "I'm sorry I said that," the woman in the wheelchair said, "but that woman nearly killed me!" "No, no, that's OK," one businessman told her, "we're glad you yelled!"

Actually, I was just as sympathetic to the SUV driver. Pedestrians in motorized wheelchairs make compact visual targets. They subtend small solid angles. In a confusing spectacle like the typical urban street scene, they tend to blend into the background, and thus can be hard to see.

Well, that's at least what I told myself, the last three or four times I nearly barreled into pedestrians crossing the street in motorized wheelchairs....