brake please, or stop you freaking idiot!!!!

Every school day we wake up early, get ready for school and then, with our neighbors from across the street, walk to school.  K and the boy across the street have been in the same class since their first year of pre-school so this had been a routine for about 4 years.  It's a good thing.  We're not driving that short distance to the school (a little less than half a mile).  We're encouraging personal responsibility and we can reinforce safety learning as we all walk together.  As they run along the sidewalks we make sure that they're stopping to check that cars aren't backing out of driveways and they stop at every corner to cross with us.  We live in a pretty residential neighborhood but there are a few streets that have shops and restaurants all along them.

We have to cross one of those streets everyday.

At this street there are School Crossing signs on the corners and a well painted crosswalk, though there are no crossing lights.

This morning yet another in a long line of complete human garbage decided that getting across that intersection 5 seconds sooner while blabbing away on his cell phone was more important than my continued existence.  This would piss me off any day...  But I had K with me so I skipped right over angry and onto blood boiling righteous soul stomping anger.

This is what happened:  We got to the corner just like we do every School morning.  We stopped and looked all 4 ways (it is a 4 way intersection).  I'm trying to describe this and it's getting hard... let's draw a diagram...

See that guy I wrote nasty things about?  After everyone else stopped and waited for us to cross he was still down at the previous intersection.  We (K, her friend, his mom, his little brother and I) headed into the street smiling and nodding to the drivers who had stopped but keeping an eye on the cars all the way.  As we were about to leave the first lane we crossed I stopped to double check the second lane when I saw asshole deluxe guy on his cellphone looking right at us SPEED UP to cross the intersection before we finished crossing the street.  He came within 2 feet of us (as I had stopped and pulled K back).

What a charming piece of fucking shit.  You'll forgive me, there were children present and I kept all obscenities inside, merely waving my gloved hand at the craptastic asswipe Caucasian male perp driving a white station wagon as he went along his merry non braking way.   When we got across moments later the woman who had been waiting for us to cross before she turned rolled her window down and commiserated with me, she congratulated me on muffling any foul words before they came out of my mouth.

And that was that.  I took K to school, got her into her classroom, walked home, crossed that same intersection very carefully, came home, got Mike's coffee, water, vitamins and brief case into the car, told him what happened, called the police and then sat down to write this lovely post.

What, oh... yeah I totally called the police because this is SO not the first time this has happened. To others.  To me.  Hell, it wasn't even the first time it's happened in the last month.

I had to call their information line to get the right number (no I didn't call 911).  If you're in Portland and this kind of shit happens to you or someone you know give the police a call and report it.  This is the number for traffic crimes *503 823-7233 call and leave a message.

I was hoping this little rant would make me feel better, but eh... not so much.  Instead I'm just kind of hungry for breakfast, needing a cup of tea and really hoping that the traffic crimes department calls me back...

*not for traffic crimes in process... if you are in traffic and are experiencing a real emergency please dial 911... now I totally feel like the voivemail for the police or my doctor's office