When I had just started driving, I was heading home from something one day and was turning left at an intersection. An ambulance pulled up in the cross traffic with the siren on. My light was green and I had just started to pull into the intersection when this happened. I stopped, thinking the ambulance was gonna keep going, except they also stopped. I got confused, panicked, and floored it. They almost hit me as I cut right in front of their path. I freaked the fuck out and pulled into a parking lot to calm down, feeling like a dumbass. Years later and I still freak out when I hear sirens near me on the road thinking I’m gonna fuck up again somehow.
I’ve had something really similar. They were coming from my right side, turning left (so back the way I was coming from) and I was already in the intersection waiting for the path to clear. A few cars going straight just went through but then the ambulance waited for a period that was long enough I wondered if they were waiting for me to clear out of their path. It wasn’t a near collision but I got the honk siren when I actually did get in their path.
Or another time I got confused pulling up to a red light because the car ahead of me ran the red as it changed but I didn’t see the change, just the red that he ran. No one else was going and I thought “oh shit, the light isn’t working and they are waiting for me to go” and turned left right as the intersection started going.
Thinking about it outside the moment, I know that people would be honking or waving if they were waiting on me. Also that even if someone is waiting on me, it doesn’t mean it’s time to panic accelerate. It’s not the end of the world if you annoy someone. Which is how both of those ended up turning out, I just annoyed some people, no accidents, tickets, or road rage, hopefully I’ve learned from those (haven’t been in that situation since, so who knows at this point), but there’s no point in dwelling on them.
When I had just started driving, I was heading home from something one day and was turning left at an intersection. An ambulance pulled up in the cross traffic with the siren on. My light was green and I had just started to pull into the intersection when this happened. I stopped, thinking the ambulance was gonna keep going, except they also stopped. I got confused, panicked, and floored it. They almost hit me as I cut right in front of their path. I freaked the fuck out and pulled into a parking lot to calm down, feeling like a dumbass. Years later and I still freak out when I hear sirens near me on the road thinking I’m gonna fuck up again somehow.
I’ve had something really similar. They were coming from my right side, turning left (so back the way I was coming from) and I was already in the intersection waiting for the path to clear. A few cars going straight just went through but then the ambulance waited for a period that was long enough I wondered if they were waiting for me to clear out of their path. It wasn’t a near collision but I got the honk siren when I actually did get in their path.
Or another time I got confused pulling up to a red light because the car ahead of me ran the red as it changed but I didn’t see the change, just the red that he ran. No one else was going and I thought “oh shit, the light isn’t working and they are waiting for me to go” and turned left right as the intersection started going.
Thinking about it outside the moment, I know that people would be honking or waving if they were waiting on me. Also that even if someone is waiting on me, it doesn’t mean it’s time to panic accelerate. It’s not the end of the world if you annoy someone. Which is how both of those ended up turning out, I just annoyed some people, no accidents, tickets, or road rage, hopefully I’ve learned from those (haven’t been in that situation since, so who knows at this point), but there’s no point in dwelling on them.