epiphany

Hit and Stop and Talk and Run

So, I'm on the bus on the way to work this morning. I like the morning bus. The morning bus is always on time, unlike the evening bus. Sometimes the morning bus is even a little bit early.

Anyway, I'm on the bus this morning, sitting by the right side window toward the back of the front section (first set of raised seats), and we just crossed the Ballard Bridge. I'm reading an instruction manual for the voice recorder my sister and brother-in-law got me for Christmas when I glance up and think, wow, that little red car is awfully close. Is he still moving? Within a second or two, there's a loud crunching noise. The bus pulls over amid noise of confusion from the passengers.

A girl (not really a girl--she was probably in her mid-twenties) runs up from the back of the bus to the driver, shouting, "I seen him! I seen him! He was talking on his cell phone!" Other drivers stop and offer to serve as witnesses for the bus driver.

A short, bespectacled, older man with closely cropped hair, a camel hair overcoat covering his business attire, comes walking along the right side of the bus. He comes to the driver and says, "I can't believe you hit me! I can't believe you pulled out in front of me like that!"

Grammar girl shouts, "Nu-uuhh! I seen you! You were talking on your cell phone! I seen you!"

The bus driver says, "I believe you have a yield sign, and busses always have the right of way."

Driver man, who had been merging onto 15 from a side street, pauses awkwardly, apparently realizing the score: witnesses for the bus driver--50. Witnesses for driver man--0. Then he says, "Um. Well. Is anybody hurt."

I hadn't even felt the bus jerk when he hit us.

Upon ascertaining that everyone was ok, driver man walks back to his car, presumably to get his insurance papers.

Then he leaves!

Hit and stop and talk and run. Somewhere out in Seattle hides a smartly-dressed fugitive, an embarrassed older man with a little, banged up red car. The Metro likely has his face on videotape, though to my knowledge, no one knows his license plate number.

I still made it to work on time. I like the morning bus.

Posted by jonhanneman at January 21, 2005 8:27 PM