Spoke too Soon

I'm walking back to my hotel from the subway earlier this evening, and I come to an intersection and wait a few ticks for the light to turn green. The orange hand turns off. The big light turns green, and the little white guy (the one on the walk light) illuminates. I start walking...in the crosswalk, and then I hear squealing tires and look up to see a yellow cab bearing down on me.

Laugh if you want, if you think I'm paranoid. But after yesterday's headlines up here - a 21-year-old woman was killed when the cab she and her girlfriends were in crashed after the alleged reckless driver passed out and slammed into a wall - I ain't turning my back on cabbies.

I try to walk faster, but it isn't fast enough for this guy. He honks his horn and keeps coming. Obviously he doesn't hit me. I'm sitting here writing, but as he speeds around me he makes a shoo-fly motion with his hand and yells at me out his window "Get out of the street!"

Are you kidding me! Me get out the street? I had the little white guy illuminated! That street belonged to me for another few seconds.

Needless to say, using my own brand of sign language, I show the cabbie that "We're number one!" and keep walking.

New York North friendlier than New York South? Sheesh, how could I even have considered it.

I've been in some bumper-car taxis in Miami, but I haven't ever had one nearly run me down in a cross walk and then tell me I shouldn't have been there.