I almost died recently.

I’m 52, active and healthy, with three children in college and a husband who loves me. I almost died, and I would never have known what hit me.

What I did was stupid, I’ll admit it. But let me start at the beginning.

After work, I headed to Gold’s Gym on Union Hill Road. There was no parking there, so I parked at Kohl’s, on the other side of 178th Avenue Northeast. I noticed that several people parked at Kohl’s were running across the street to Gold’s, to avoid the traffic light at Union Hill, and shook my head at the risks people will take, in the dark. I crossed at the light.

After class I left Gold’s, returned to the light, and began to cross when the lights turned green.

That was my almost fatal mistake, because I didn’t notice that the west-bound left-turn arrow was also green.  Fortunately, the left-turning car saw me, and stopped in the intersection before turning left across my crosswalk. But that wasn’t how I nearly died – my leash was actually much shorter than that.

As I became aware of the car waiting to turn left, I simultaneously became aware of the sound of a large engine directly to my left, in my lane. You see, there was also a green right arrow for northbound vehicles in the curbside lane, to turn east onto Union Hill Road.

There’s no reason the truck should have seen me, in my dark pants and jacket, walking into the street directly in its path while it had a green arrow.  But it did and it stopped. I never even saw it; the magnitude of the danger didn’t strike me until I was across the street, and by then it was gone.

I’m going to guess that this has happened to others.  The light turns green; often people start moving without noticing that an arrow is also lit.  That’s usually recoverable, because there’s time to see your error. But the other arrow is dangerous. Merely stepping into the street, when all the lights are green, can put you directly in the path of a fast-moving vehicle, with no time for anyone to react.

Green lights and a green arrow have a different impact from red lights and a green arrow, in terms of the mistakes or decisions people will make. And that arrow for northbound traffic is invisible to the pedestrian, yet it’s the most important fact of all.

There’s a risk-benefit problem here. The northbound right-turn arrow is very dangerous, invisible to pedestrians, and not necessary. I hope my survival might influence change, so a tragedy can be avoided.

Dana Good, Redmond