Certain Death!

No, not really some new adventure of mine but it seems to me that it’s the likely outcome of the way lots of pedestrians around here are behaving…

I was riding my motorbike home from work on Friday evening. It was about 5:30pm and it was as is usual at this time of year, both very dark (the sun having well and truly set by this time) and a bit rainy.
When the roads are wet around here, they become far less visible for drivers. They are all paved by big automated machines these days and the result is a very nice smooth driving surface its true. The down side though is that the same smooth surface behaves just like a mirror when it gets wet. The film of water just reflects things, and on a rainy night, this means that you get reflections of lights and the black sky…. Even the white lines marking lanes seem to disappear and driving does get significantly more dangerous.
This is all pretty normal, and the traffic slows down and drivers seem to pay at least a little more attention between their cell phone conversations and adjusting their hair or eating their fast food … or whatever else they are usually doing while driving.

Like I said, this is normal and life goes on…
So, I was driving home in the light rain and being quite cautious when all of a sudden I realize there is a pedestrian strolling out onto the road directly in front of me and I had to break and swerve quite a bit to miss him.

Where on earth did he come from so quickly?

He was near to an intersection (15m past) but he was not on a pedestrian crossing. There are streetlights on the side of the road but it is near a park and the lights are more spaced out than usual.
This is normal and does not explain why I didn’t see him sooner.

The answer is that he wasn’t that quick, just very well camouflaged!
He was (as seems to be a common habit these days) wearing completely black clothing. His outer garment of choice this evening was a “hoodie” and he had the hood up and was strolling along with his hands in his pockets because it was raining.
So I didn’t even get the minimally reflective face or hands to see.
And he was just strolling along barely even looking at the traffic – This is pretty normal around here too (though I have no idea why) – if a pedestrian even looks sideways at the road in this city, most cars will immediately give way for them. The local pedestrians seem to have pretty minimal self-preservation instincts it seems to me. In virtually any other city I have been in these pedestrians would all get squished!

So, I avoided the unpleasant experience of running someone over and I gave him a good toot with my horn just after I went past him… to which, I noted in my rear view mirrors, he gave me the universal “hands slightly raised” and “whats your problem” expression…
Oh well, I guess he’ll figure it out the painful way!

This was the closest call like this that I have had but, sadly, Ive seen several other pedestrians dressed and behaving just the same in the last month or so…I guess its just that “in between” weather we have at the moment that is encouraging it.

Why do city people like to wear so much black stuff anyway????