I have always said that the driver of the car that hit me must not have turned on her lights, or she would have seen me against the background of fresh snowfall from the night before. Today, as I walked toward Penn, I approached a cross street. I’ll try to diagram the situation:
Woman in the car headlights
The car caught my attention, although since it was turning it would not affect the path I planned to take. Although the sun was out, low in the sky, it had rained earlier. The car still had its lights on. I looked directly at the car. The driver was turning widely so that the car was at a direct angle headed for me.

For a deer-like moment I stood transfixed. The turning car slowed a bit, and the lights shone directly, squarely, in my face. The explosion of fear that I felt then had nothing to do with the current situation. It came from another time and another place, when the lights of a car had headed straight for me without stopping, when I could not possibly move fast enough to get out of the way, when the driver just did not stop or turn aside.