Vulnerable Situations

I was driving home from work the other night, and on my dimly lit suburban street I passed not one but two people walking their dogs while wearing all black, rendering them nearly impossible to see in the darkness (one had put a glow ring around his dog, clearly demonstrating his priorities regarding whose survival he cared about most).

I was furious as I passed them. How could they be so irresponsible? How could they put me in that situation? 

And then once I reached home, I reflected on that emotion, because it struck me as a bit weird and in need of unpacking.

Obviously, I was worried that I wouldn't see the pedestrian and would strike them with my car. Of course, if that happened, it'd be the pedestrian who'd actually be injured. I'm encased inside a one-ton steel tank. I'd be fine. But it'd be very traumatizing, and I'd feel terrible, and then there are the potential legal consequences -- those are all pretty scary, and it's that imagined prospect that really motivates my anger at the pedestrian.

So to sum up: I'm mad at the pedestrian for putting me in a position where I might be emotionally traumatized and/or face legal liability for seriously hurting them.

The thing is, when you put it that way, I sound like a sociopath. "Did you ever consider how you getting physically maimed on the hood of my car might effect me?" Who thinks like that?

Apparently I do, at least instinctively. So ... is that a sociopathic emotion? Certainly, we might say the pedestrian should behave differently (say, wear brighter colors) out of a healthy sense of self-preservation. But is there some sort of implied duty to the driver as well? Is there a sense in which someone who is vulnerable has, at least in circumstances where it is feasible/relatively costless, an obligation to mitigate their own vulnerability? Or is that nuts?

No broad moral here. Just a thought I was wrestling through.