Back 1994, in Tokyo, I was riding across town to meet my sister and her husband for dinner. I got out of the lab and rode fast and about a mile from her house, an old drunk "Oyaji" burst out onto the street in front of me from a small pub. I swerved around, crashed into a guard rail, flipped over and snapped my fibula and shredded all the ligaments in my ankle. Many passers-by just ignored me. I had to extract my own left leg out of the straps, and then straighten it up feeling the "grind" of bone. I sat there for over 15 minutes until a Filipina woman servant came out of another shop and found me. Between her broken English and lack of good Japanese, I managed to have her call my sister and tell her roughly where I was. When the orthopedics doctor in the hospital made the sucking sound, and then told me I wasn't like to walk proper again, I booked the next flight out on United back to SF. Less than 16 hours after the accident, I was riding the JR train to get to the the Airport Bus at Suitengu-mae to get to Narita Airport. For 2 hrs, I had to stand w/ crutches with a painful, throbbing fresh break because the average Japanese were never trained to yield the "Silver Seats" to the handicapped. Finally, it was a Korean guy that yielded his seat to me for the last 30 minutes into Suitengue-mae Eki.

But I walk normally today. (thanks to an orthopedic surgeon who fixed up some SF 49'ers too). And I can hike too with a couple of poles. Thanks to some good Samaritans who chose not to ignore me. So bad laws or not, it's my karma to help others.