What you described is referred to as "toe overlap." When your pedals are in the 3 and 9 o'clock position, the forward foot can hit the wheel, but only if you turn the wheel to about 90 degrees.

If you have a road bike, there's really never a reason for you to turn your wheel 90 degrees. You might experience toe overlap when you're just getting rolling and to avoid it make sure your wheel is pointing straight ahead in the direction you want to ride.

If you have a mountain or cyclocross bike, toe overlap would be more of an issue since you might do some slow-speed maneuvering on switchbacks or other tight turns.

Toe overlap is more common with smaller riders/bikes, but I had a custom cyclocross built for me that had toe overlap (and I'm almost 5'10" tall).