Holding my granddaughter’s left hand tightly in my right hand, I waited at the corner of Ritter Avenue and Washington Street for the light to change to green. Myah and I were going to the Family Dollar store as a part of our stroll. She likes to shop because she usually gets a toy out of the trip; I like to walk with her. When the walk sign came on, we stepped into the street and two steps later a woman aimed the snout of her SUV directly at us. I grabbed Myah’s hand tighter and pointed my finger at the woman’s windshield and roared: “Nooo!”
In June 2006, NFL quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was injured while riding his motorcycle when a woman piloting a Chrysler New Yorker made a left turn in front of him and struck his bike. As a native Pittsburgher, I have seen that left turn executed many times. Two cars, headed in opposite directions, wait at an intersection for the light to change. When it does, one driver guns into the intersection, making a left turn before the other driver can move. I’ve dubbed the move “The Pittsburgh Left,” and the woman who almost mashed me and Myah was making her urgent left turn in front of approaching traffic, at the same intersection in front of George W. Julian School 57, where, in September of this year, a child was killed by a driver.
When walking with my granddaughter, I exercise the greatest of caution; she once corrected me, stopping after we stepped into the street, telling me that we did not “look both ways.” I make sure that she stops, looks, and listens before we cross streets. We do that even at the driveway that leads behind the Irvington Preparatory School and especially at the Irvington Circle.
The woman who nearly killed me and Myah is lucky that my granddaughter was at the end of my arm. When I bellowed at her, she motioned to me, indicating that she wanted me to get out of her way. I told her to back her car up, then walked on with my child. I did not want Myah to hear the language I wanted to use in addressing a selfish, self-centered, and inconsiderate driver who was apparently too busy to make sure that there were no pedestrians in her path. I am a profane man, capable of bluing the air with epithets. Had there not been a 3.6-year-old with me, I would not have moved from the intersection until the driver had backed up her SUV. And I would have verbally given her, as some are wont to say, “the BUSINESS!”
I see the Pittsburgh Left being executed by drivers up and down Washington Street, even at intersections that have a dedicated left turn light. Drivers roar through the light after time has expired, and woe betide those pedestrians who are in the crosswalk when the selfish ones press the accelerator. The nasty maneuver did not result in the injury to the crossing guard and a parent, and the death of a child in the crosswalk of School 57, but the same lack of consideration for the safety of others caused two bickering, road-raging drivers to take one life and injure two others.
It is likely that I will die in a crosswalk under the white “walk” signal because I won’t yield to the ignorant, my right to passage. I have had many close calls, and on one occasion, slapped my hand against an encroaching car. My eulogy should note that I died from the Pittsburgh Left.
cjon3acd@att.net