My Need To Win

I stepped into the road in front of a speeding van. I'm still working out why.

Earlier this week I yelled at a guy in a work van speeding through the school zone of my daughter’s school. It was morning drop-off at an elementary school, so the place was full of kids. Some of these kids are learning how to cross a street, other completely oblivious to the fact that a street is a thing that can hurt them.

Let me tell you how it escalated.

Lily had already crossed on her own since she’s learning street safety, and so she’d made it across a couple of minutes before. I was still in the car, about to get out and cross the street as well. I stick around for drop-off because there’s a good group of parents who hang back and talk, and I like that. I like my community. So I was about to get out and cross over to join them when I checked my sideview mirror and saw the van coming, quickly. And I made a split-second decision, telling myself that I need this person to know that speeding through a school zone is wrong and that I need to protect these kids from a speeding van.

I st…