I am walking along a busy street and then decide to cross the road. When I am getting near the other side of the road, the obsessive thoughts start: “What if I accidentally touch somebody while I am crossing the road and force the person in front of a car and cause his death?” The compulsive part with all the checking methods is kicking in now too:

1. Once reaching the other side, I will check the road (from the pavement) to see if anybody is lying on the ground. This checking takes some time and even after several minutes it is like my eyes don’t want to believe what they see, and I will have to check again.

2. I may see some oil marks on the road and then will obsess over whether they are blood. Then I do the scariest thing and cross the road again to check the oil marks which I am now certain are blood marks which confirms that I am responsible for someone’s death. I will touch the oil marks and smell them and will also check out the colour to make sure it is not red. I will even rub the oil between my fingers to see if it is greasy or if it is blood.

3. I will also wait on the side of the road and listen for ambulance or police sirens. If I hear sirens in the distance, I am almost sure I am responsible for someone’s death. I will stay on the spot to see and to hear if the vehicle with the sirens is coming closer.

Sometimes people are sitting down next to the road. Even worse, sometimes they will lie down because they are on their lunch break, and then I become obsessed with the idea that they have been hit by a car and are dead, and I am responsible for it. At this point, I will start several other checking methods. I will walk to the person lying down on the pavement and talk to them, asking questions like “What time is it?” If they respond, then I know they are not dead. I will also watch them from a distance and wait until their lunch time is over so that I can see that they are standing up and that there is nothing wrong.

To summarise, when I am walking there are lot of things I must do and not do, such as:

1. When I am crossing the road I must make sure I am crossing it alone.
2. I must also make sure that when I cross there are no cars in sight.
3. I must not talk to anybody when I am walking. Otherwise I might distract them, and they could walk in front of a car and get killed, and it would be my fault.
4. I must not greet anyone driving past me, because the driver might take his eyes off the road to greet me back and then run somebody over which would be my fault.
5. I must not push a trolley when we are shopping because I may get in somebody's way and when they try to pass me they might walk in front of a moving car and get killed, and I would be responsible for it.
6. When somebody asks me for directions to a certain place, even if I know the way I won’t tell them because what if I accidentally give the wrong directions and they get into an accident?
7. I will not walk at night because I can’t see as well as during the day, and I must be sure that I can see everything.
8. I will not cross a busy road at a pedestrian crossing because there are too many people using it, and I could accidentally bump someone in front of a moving car. Therefore, I would rather cross the road somewhere else where there are no people.

When I am walking on the pavement, I must make sure to pass pedestrians on the outside so that it is not possible for me to accidentally bump them into the road where they could be run over by a car.