TIFU by not knowing what a word meant

Obligatory didn’t actually happen today; this happened around 9 years ago.

So I was on a drive with my driving instructor because I had my first behind-the-wheel driving exam in two weeks.

Everything was going well initially and my instructor said that she was totally confident in my ability to pass the exam. But then I reached a four way intersection on a red light and I was instructed to make a right turn. Now, for context, where I’m from, you can do a right turn on a red light but you must yield to those crossing the road as well as thru traffic.

So I checked for thru traffic but there wasn’t any in the vicinity but there was a man in his late forties to early fifties crossing the road. My instructor must have seen him too because she said, “Careful, there’s a pedestrian”

Then, when he was in front of my car, I pushed down hard on the accelerator, hitting him on his side and causing him to fall down. He got up, limped off hurriedly and pulled out his phone. My normally composed instructor turned to me, aghast, and said, “What the fuck are you thinking???”

“Serves him right for being into kids!”

As it turned out, dear readers, that was not what “pedestrian” meant. Thankfully, the dude was super chill and declined to press charges and even chuckled a bit after understanding the situation. However, I felt super bad and still cringe to this day when I think of it. Needless to say, my instructor declined to continue teaching me and my parents were not too happy.

TL;DR: Didn’t know what a word meant, made assumptions about what it meant and acted on said assumptions without verifying first.

Edit:

Okay let’s be clear about some things: I already brought the car to a full stop when I reached the crosswalk. So it’s not like I could’ve accelerated to more than 20 mph. Plus, I didn’t plan on going over the crosswalk and running over the dude; just hitting him at a relatively low speed to scare him.