The email I sent to Verizon

[Gerrinson]

To whom it may concern:

On Friday, July 11th, I was nearly run down by one of your employees in a company vehicle.

The incident occurred at approximately 8:15 AM in Town, State. I was in the crosswalk, where legally all vehicles must yield to pedestrians, and attempting to cross the street. Your employee, however, was obviously in too much of a hurry to make her turn and gunned her engine to get through the crosswalk before me. This resulted in me coming to a stop next to the 'Yield to pedestrians' sign in the middle of the road and wait for her car to clear the crosswalk. She missed me by mere inches.

Your employee then proceeded to ignore the pedestrians in the crosswalk of the side street, those pedestrians being two children who appeared to be between 6 and 10 years old. Furthermore, the driver then made an illegal u-turn through the double yellow line, cutting off oncoming traffic and driving the crosswalk with the children yet again.

I'm not one of your customers, so my opinion may not carry much weight, but with your employee's complete disregard for the safety of others while driving in a company vehicle, it would be in your best interest to curb her poor driving before you're sued by the family of someone she's killed. It would also be in my best interest, as I do not wish to be run down on my way to work in the morning.

The vehicle was a white sedan with State commercial plates ###-### with your Verizon logo emblazoned across the driver's door. The woman driving appeared to be in her mid-30's. And, again, this occured on 7/11/08 in Town, State at approx. 8:15 AM. This should give you enough information to hopefully locate the employee and perhaps suggest she show more restraint when driving.

I waited until now to contact your company at the behest of my girlfriend who suggested I take the weekend to calm down and approach this email in a rational manner. I believe that was good advice, as my initial reaction was, I think understandably, quite wrathful.

Best Regards,

Me

[MadMike]

Wow, I hope that crazy driver gets her ass handed to her. Glad you were able to get a plate number.

Keep us posted.

[Boozy]

Nice job getting the plates. I never think to do that until it's too late and they're long gone.

[RetailWorkhorse]

Holy smokes, I thought it was just the verizon drivers around here! I followed one down a mountain and I kept pace with him only because I wanted to find out how he drove on that mountain slide (badly, he crossed the double-yellow while I didn't. He drove the Truck and I drove my SUV). Out-stripped everyone else on the road. He was good, but not I wasn't impressed (the crossing of the lines took off points). He spoke to me over the CB and said I was pretty damned good but that he had someplace he was late to so he couldn't play with me any longer.

[Gerrinson]

Nice job getting the plates. I never think to do that until it's too late and they're long gone.

Sadly, I've developed the 'get the plate number!' response due to having been almost run over on a number of occasions. I think I've been forgetting to remove my invisibility cloak before entering the crosswalk.

The last time I failed to get the plate number (not that I often do anything with it, but that's another story) was in the winter about 6 years ago now. There's a crosswalk with a crossing light (i.e. normal traffic light, but only for the crosswalk not a cross street). I pushed the button, waited for it to turn red and the walk light to go on, I get to the double yellow line and look up to see a van not even beginning to slow down. I get splashed with slush (this was during a snow storm, of course) as the van blows through the red light and the crosswalk with me in it.

That driver got reported to his company, however, as they are local and have 7 different vans, each one a different color. So, I only needed the color and not the plate.

There's not much I can do to civilians, but if you're in a company/town/state/military vehicle and you ignore the law and damn near kill me, I will report your ass. And your boss will probably respond, given the massive litigiousness of the good ol' USA these days. I'd sue for emotional trauma, but I guess I'm not fragile enough to be destroyed by one close call. Or even a few dozen...