Roxanne? Sorry, You Do Have To

In the process of slowly making my way up Vermont Avenue tonight, I sat at a red light. (I don't know what the cross street was - somewhere around the low numbers, maybe Beverly.) I patiently waited for the pedestrian light outside the passenger window to switch from white walking man to blinky orange hand to steady orange hand. The light above it, aimed at the cross street in front of me, switched to yellow then to red.

And a-one, and a-two...

My light turned green. I took my foot off the brake and rolled forward. I wanted to get home, but I wasn't rushing. My whole car was in the intersection and my foot still had not hit the gas. Which turned out to be good.

I caught motion out of the side of my left eye. Instinctively, I hit the brake. Which was also good, because when I turned my head I saw a late-90s maroon luxury car bombing through its red light and zooms across the street. Seriously, he had about four full seconds of red light before entering the intersection with extreme prejudice. I leaned on my horn, hoping the sound would act as both a warning to the other cars around me and to give an aural "screw you" to this crazy dude. The car in the lane to the right of me didn't stop as quickly as I did, and came within two feet of smashing into the back of the red-light-runner.

Why I Am Awesome: Thanks to a combination of good instincts, solid peripheral vision and dumb luck, I did not end up in a twisted wreck in the middle of an L.A. street. Which I'd call a good thing.

Why I Am Not Awesome: I ignored my following instincts to slam my car to the right, track down this moron and pull a GTA on him, throwing him onto the street and kicking the living crap out of him. Which I, of course, would never have actually done. But I could have at least written down his license plate number and report him, in the hopes that some sort of punishment would come from his reckless driving. But instead I just kept going straight and went home. It might not have been an intelligent plan, but you have to admit that pursuing a medium-speed chase to track down this evildoer would have been pretty awesome. Maybe next time.