I witnessed a near-accident on the way to work. A woman driver nearly backed into an oblivious pedestrian.

The only thing that prevented collision was the driver’s extremely slow speed. That’s what made me notice her in the first place – she crossed the intersection with the intent to park at the curb, moving in jerks so slowly that her minivan’s rear end was still in the crosswalk, about to be in my path, when her right front tire scraped the curb. She stopped. She put the van in reverse just as a young woman was stepping off the curb behind the vehicle. The pedestrian wore a hat and muffler and held her cellphone to her right ear, blocking her peripheral vision along with her attention. There was no way she saw the van.

And the driver? I watched her profile. She drove chin up. She hesitated going backward just like she did going forward. But she never saw the pedestrian.

Their near encounter reminded me of those old Popeye cartoons, where fugitive Swee’Pea or sleepwalking Popeye travel the moving girders of high rise construction, without mishap.