I'm so stupid I am

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I embarrassed myself in the street today.

I am always good at crossing the road, but today I just wasn't thinking and I caused a hazard. I got off a very crowded bus and I wanted to get home because I had frozen food in my bag. At the bus stop a few people were waiting to get on, and so I thought the bus will probably be sat there for a minute or so because some people take ages paying their fare. So I went to cross the road in front of the bus, but there was a car coming from behind the bus, so I stood and waited, knowing that the bus wasn't going to pull out while there is a car overtaking it. But the car stopped to let the bus pull out (the passengers who got on must have had bus passes), and the bus-driver waved me to cross, so I did. But I stupidly didn't look the other way, probably assuming that there was nothing coming from the other way if the bus-driver waved me to go. But as I crossed, a car was coming from the other way (the side I didn't look), and honked his horn angrily as he drew close to me. For some reason I felt very socially anxious, because I suppose I was a jaywalker to them, and when I got home I cried. I just felt frustrated with myself for crossing so stupidly. I wish I had of just gone to cross behind the bus, then none of that would have happened. The car coming from the other side should have seen that the bus was quickly letting a pedestrian cross as I was a hazard and I would have been more of a hazard if I had stopped in the middle of the road to let it go by, so it should really have stopped. Yes I know I should have known to cross in a more safer place but this is why I am writing this thread. I am so stupid. Why did I do that?

These things happen - I've had mishaps like that in the past, and nowadays will only cross at a designated walk signal (rather than just a crosswalk), because I have trouble judging the speed of oncoming traffic.

Live and learn (and be careful!) I'm glad you're okay

Hi Joe90, You truly are not stupid at all. Many of do things that may not be sensible at the time, when we are distracted.
The important thing is, that you are safe, that you came out of it ok. Obviously you have learned from the experience, and no harm came of it. I guess it'll make you "look twice" next time you cross the road.

But really, there's no point beating yourself up over it (I say that kindly, I'm not brushing you off)
It doesn't sound like you make a habit of just crossing over, whenever?

I'm glad you got home safe and sound.

Thanks guys for making me feel a bit better about it. Things like this get me all anxious, not because of knowing that I might have got knocked over, but because I felt and looked silly at the time.

I probably would have done what you did and responded to the bus driver's wave. It's the kind of thing that you only do once and it wasn't deliberate.

Because of my anxiety disorder I do tend to overanalyze situations like this. Posting it on WP always makes me feel better.

I do that stuff regularly, all I can say is that by the time you get old you won't cry about that sort of thing.

Reminds me of the Herman's Hermit's song: "I'm Henery the Eight I am."

The bus driver was in the wrong

The highway code says

Also there is no such offense as jaywalking in the UK.

It is considered a personal responsibility to cross the road safely (although ex London mayor Ken Livingstone proposed making jaywalking illegal). The Highway Code recommends that all pedestrians abide by the Green Cross Code: "Where there is a crossing nearby, use it. Otherwise choose a place where you can see clearly in all directions.

It was one of those kinds of many mistakes we learn from.

I thought jaywalking just meant crossing the road carelessly.

The road I was crossing (my home street) doesn't have a crossing, but it is generally an easy road to cross as I can see both directions. But in this situation the impatient bus-driver made me have to think fast. I just felt silly. What would others do in this situation? Normally I wait for the bus to pull away completely before I start to cross over the road, but I was in a hurry to get home with my heavy shopping and I thought the people getting on to the bus would delay the bus another minute or so whilst paying the fare. I often see people crossing in front of the bus before it pulls off, and the driver normally waits for the person to cross safely. I suppose copying what other people do isn't a very good option when you're me, as whenever I do things everyone else does it always happens to be at the wrong time.

When I was younger I had this Mexican standoff situation where I wanted to cross the road, there were cars waiting for me to cross but then I waited for them to go first,then I changed my mind and decided to just run,and then the car decided to move at the same time. Then we both stopped,this happened about 3 times . I was really embarrassed!

So just letting you know you're not the only one

What you did seems reasonable to me. There was a drivers safety study that showed ASD folks are more safe in some ways and less safe in others. I would assume the same applies to walking, e.g. crossing streets.

You should have seen me trying to cross the street in a third-world country last year with my children. It was only two lanes each way with a middle grassy area. Somebody felt sorry for me and helped, and within the next 2 minutes a man got hit by a car and I had to wonder if it was from a small series of events b/c that person helped me. But then I am over responsible by nature so do not ruminate on that thought (much).

We are fretting about these things. I am fairly certain my NT husband wouldn't think twice and it had it occurred to him and if he did he'd blame the drivers.

I spose the safest thing is to wait for the bus to drive off. I can see how sometimes you would have a moment of weakness and just want to cross though.

Normally I do wait until the bus has pulled off before I cross, so that it's no longer in my way. But I just hate waiting awkwardly for it to pull off because I get self-conscious; I feel like the people sitting on the bus are all staring out the windows at me and I hate feeling like I'm being stared at like I'm on stage. I do sometimes do a slow walk along the sidewalk until the bus pulls away, but sometimes it takes so long to pull away that I end up several yards down the street and have to walk back on myself again, and I was in no mood for that. I never thought getting off a bus and crossing a road would cause so much anxiety for an independent person like me.

This is why I sometimes get agoraphobic and avoid going out. It's situations like this that sets off my social anxiety, and in this situation it was like I brought on an embarrassing situation myself to avoid an embarrassing situation.

Just act like you are looking at your phone. People who are standing around looking at their phone become invisible so to speak. There are things I have trouble with like people walking behind me. So I just pull out my phone, stand to the side and look at it until they walk past me. I feel a lot less self conscious doing that, than if I was just standing there waiting. I am sure I draw less attention from them that way too.