I was watching a show on TV (I escaped my killer) and Lisa Noland is dropped off after being raped several times by her attacker and to her surprise he doesn't kill her, drops her off at her neighborhood. Then Lisa says:
I just started running. Every time a car went by, I hit the road.
I said "He's coming back, he's coming back for me and I just kept
running."
Hit the road as far as the dictionaries go means like "to get on the way, to start a journey etc"
Why is she getting back on the road where she should get off the road, hide or something?
Best Answer
Hit the roaddoesn't just mean to leave, nor does it necessarily mean you are actually on a road. The origin of the term is from horses hitting the road with their hooves. And technically, just walking would be "hitting the road" since you'd be stamping your feet against it. The same for a car with it's tire.The underlying meaning though is to be moving fast. To get out. It can be an offensive way to tell someone to just .... well, leave.
Nowadays, the idiom doesn't carry as much offense to it as it used to, and more often than not, people proclaim that they themselves are getting ready to
hit the road, contradicting it's use as an offensive idiom.So you're mistaken when you think that she is off the road. The context means that when she heard a car, she hit the ground running, she moved fast.