What if pedestrians run recklessly into traffic at a crosswalk? If a driver fails to brake because he has not seen the pedestrian in time, is he guilty of an offense? Or is the pedestrian a jaywalker? [Emphasis mine.]
As noted, from the OP, emphasis mine.
He was never in danger of rear-ending another car.
Another citation for you: Virginia drivers handbook from the DMV: on page 35 you can read, “You must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians who are crossing a street within a clearly marked crosswalk or at an intersection.”
QED.
Cool. None of that was happening in the OP. The cyclist was required by law to stop.
Stepping out in front of a moving car is just stupid. Let’s say you are driving down residential street at a modest 25 mph. One second before you cross an intersection, a pedestrian attempts to cross. Are you seriously suggesting that you would be at fault if you hit her? That the police would charge you with a crime? Lets use some common sense. In many situations it is impossible to yield.
You are right, and the Virginia law posted upthread confirms this.
This is precisely the part of the law that is different from California law that essentially states: " Any fool anywhere at anytime can saunter out into any road (at a crosswalk) even in the middle of a heavy, rapid flow of traffic, and expect all drivers to immediately stop for the pedestrian."
First off- I am paraphrasing using exaggeration, of course, and anytime there is a vehicle vs. pedestrian situation the vehicle *must *stop.
Secondly, when I first learned about the California law allowing pedestrians the ability to impede, and interupt vehicle traffic at will I was rather impressed. I was from a big midwestern city and I was tired of having to wait 10 minutes for traffic to break so I could cross a street at a crosswalk.
But I quickly realized that the drivers and pesdestrians both take the thing too far in California. Pedestrians will walk slowly across a crosswalk almost at random without even looking; expecting busy traffic to see them and stop suddenly. Drivers, for their part, all too often suddenly stop if there is anybody even looking like they might approach a curb. I get really tired of drivers who-- thinking they are being helpful–essential force me to cross a street before I actually wanted to (because they have stopped and are staring at me waiting for me to do something).
Most of the rest of the country doesn’t do it like California. So try not to judge the OP’s situation through the eyes of a Californian. It appears that in Virginia cars can move through crosswalks at will even when there is a pedestrian standing at the curb waiting to cross. Naturally, if the pedestrian has broken the law and stepped out into traffic at the crosswalk, the car must stop for him.
I don’t understand your confusion about this. People in cars yield right of way to other cars all the time: if a car is entering a freeway, it must yield right of way to traffic already on the freeway. Cars at traffic circles yield to other traffic as required. Cars making lefts have to yield for oncoming traffic. So certainly we are all familar with the concept of yielding right of way, right?
Just like cars cannot “seize” right of way from other cars (eg, quickly darting out in order to cut off another driver who is just starting to accelerate from a yield sign), pedestrians cannot “seize” right of way by running out pell-mell into a crosswalk. But if they have responsibly entered a crosswalk, it is the responsibility of drivers to yield to them, just like drivers yield to other cars in a traffic circle, oncoming cars when making a left across traffic, drivers have to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk. Here’s Virginia’s law on pedestrians:
So if your pedestrian jumps out one second before traffic, they aren’t being careful. If a pedestrian is stepping out into a crosswalk and cars can safely come to a stop, there have been ample cites of Virginia law to demonstrate that cars are required by law to yield to the pedestrians, even if it is inconvenient.
If you want to continue arguing that cars don’t have to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks, why don’t you (or the others) make with the cites?
I happen to agree that pedestrians in crosswalks have the right of way. It just is not the case every time, as you have pointed out here, and failed to do in your previous post. It is the “Q.E.D.” that I take issue with. It is not true that in every case a pedestrian has the right of way. Your previous post did not contain the caveats of your most recent one, hence my confusion, and your inability to understand same.
The cyclist in the OP was illegally in the crosswalk, as he was required by law to stop.
I can’t recall a thread where in so few posts so many people have been able to understand how the OP made this or that assertion or that the OP believes this or that all without the OP even suggesting such a thing.
I can’t see where the OP suggests that once a pedestrian is crossing the road they don’t have right of way.
The OP is only pitting the other drivers who yield to people who are not yet crossing the road. I imagine it would be the same story if the other drivers on a highway were suddenly yielding right of way to cars at a T intersection that were stopped at a stop sign. Or suddenly stopping on the highway to allow a parked car to perhaps pull out.
I think he just wants everyone playing from the same rule book. I can certainly see how traffic travelling north encouraging someone to cross east-west could be an awful surprise to someone travelling south.
Then email the Virginia DMV. It’s their handbook.
I can’t make the same conclusion. It sounds to me like the OP was driving northboard (for instance) and southbound traffic stopped so a bike could cross west to east, but it was only luck that the OP saw the bike or the stopped southbound traffic. How do you jump to the conclusion that the bike was illegally in the crosswalk? Couldn’t he have stopped, proceeded into the crosswalk, and southbound traffic yielded to him?
It sounds to me like the OP just doesn’t want to stop at crosswalks because he’d rather make good time in his car and he is in error about the law saying that cars don’t have to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks because it sooooooo annoys him to have to use his brakes.
When someone posted VA law that cars have to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, he certainly said that he didn’t think that law applied in the circumstances he was describing. When I asked if there are crosswalks, he asked what my point was. It doesn’t seem like he’s gone to any lengths to acknowledge that traffic has to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks.
Thus the Catch 22 which some here seem to be advocating: a pedestrian can’t step into a crosswalk when there are cars nearby, because the drivers might be changing the radio and therefore the pedestrian is not only jaywalking but also has some kind of reckless death wish, darting into traffic allowing impatient drivers only one second to stop; nor can cars yield to people trying not yet in the crosswalk because that would hold up traffic. If this is a street with a consistent flow of traffic, there would be literally no way for someone to cross the street according to this logic.
If you were not able to avoid the crash, then you were following too close. If you were able to stop, and you didn’t, your an idiot. $500 fine, driving school, plus court costs, next case.
I see, it’s not misunderstanding you are deliberately being obtuse.
It doesn’t he is pitting people giving way to pedestrians who are required to give way to the vehicles
What is your point about crosswalks? He, like I, thinks it is immaterial. Drivers have to allow pedestrians to cross the road whether there is a marked crosswalk or not - once they are crossing the road.
I have many years of experience as both a driver and a pedestrian. If I am on foot approaching an uncontrolled crossing (which would be uncommon on a genuinely busy road) I can generally tell if the oncoming vehicle is slowing down to allow me on to the crossing. In fact, if I can see that after the oncoming car there is a large break in the traffic I will slow down my approach to the crossing so that the driver doesn’t bother stopping for me. Alternately if the approaching vehicle keeps going at the speed limit I don’t enter the crossing to assert my right of way because the driver may not be paying attention, perhaps changing the radio station. I would have to have adeath wish to just steop in front of a vehicle that isn’t stopping. As A driver I slow down and stop for anyone who looks as though they will start to cross before I get to the crossing (or enter the roadway at all if no crossing is marked). So far I have not been killed nor have I killed anyone.
The OP is a moron. If he’s that worried about crashing into people stopped for pedestrians then he’s not paying enough attention to what’s going on around him.
No, the OP is not. The cyclist is required by law to stop according to the signs which means they have to wait until it is clear to proceed. Someone coming the other way (not in front of LE but coming toward LE) stopped to let a cyclist who was not in the crosswalk enter the crosswalk when they shouldn’t have and the cyclist apparently didn’t make sure it was clear both ways or assumed it was clear both ways since the car had stopped (always a dangerous thing to assume). Obviously LE was paying attention or he/she would have hit the cyclist instead of getting stopped in time.
Don’t just read posts, take the time to comprehend them or you just make yourself look stupid.
Having been a pedestrian for many years, drivers like this frustrate the hell out of me. I finally got to the point where I would stand as far back from the curb as possible while still being able to see oncoming traffic so that I wouldn’t look like I was going to dart into traffic. Here are some things drivers like this have done out of “courtesy” to me:
The downtown area of my town has crosswalks in the middle of each block. I was standing near one of these, with my bicycle, having just come out of a store whose front door happened to be very close to the sidewalk. I was adjusting my helmet and placing my purchase into my backpack. I had no intention of crossing the street, and I don’t think I even looked like I wanted to cross the street. And yet, a “polite” driver came to a stop to allow me to cross. I waved for her to go on. She waved for me to cross. Using hand signals, I attempted to communicate that I was not crossing the street. More hand-waving from her. Meanwhile, cars were backing up behind her, and now cars coming from the other direction were stopping, because obviously there must be somebody entering the crosswalk. I finally just crossed the damn street to get her to move the hell out of the way, because by now the drivers of several cars were all glaring at me for holding them up. When the traffic pileup moved on, I crossed back to where I had started, because I didn’t need to be on that side of the street.
My route home from work required me to cross a bridge’s cloverleaf on-ramp. As I was waiting to cross, a driver came to a screeching halt in the middle of the cloverleaf to allow me to cross. This actually happened twice. On both occasions, it was the last car in a group that came to a stop, and I had intended to cross as soon as it passed. Instead, it stopped, and in the ensuing confusion of the driver waving me across and me shaking my head “no”, the next group of cars caught up, meaning that now I had to wait even longer to cross than I would have if the last car would have just kept going.
I was standing at the corner of an intersection, waiting to cross a three-lane, one-way street. There was no traffic signal at this intersection, so drivers on the one-way were expected to drive straight through. But one driver in the nearest lane spotted me standing on the sidewalk and slammed on his brakes and waved me across. Thanks, pal, but no chance, seeing as how the cars in the other two lanes are still zipping past at 30 MPH. Actually, this happened twice as well, though the other time was one block north where thereis a traffic light, and it was green at the time.
I feel the same way about drivers who simply slow down when they see me. In fact, I think they’re even worse. Hey, I’m a grownup. I’m not going to suddenly dash out in front of you, and even if I did, I don’t think it’s going to make a whole lot of difference if you plow into me at 20 MPH instead of 30. All you’ve accomplished by slowing down is that now you’ve allowed the traffic behind you to catch up and fill the gap that I was planning to cross in, because I’ve been carefully watching traffic to figure out the safest time to cross. (I’m talking about streets and roads that I’ve walked for years, and so I’m familiar with the traffic patterns and I’m pretty good at timing my crossings.)
I’m a pedestrian most of the time too.
And I hate hate HATE it when drivers stop for me when they’re not supposed to. Gah! Generally I’m out walking with my two pre-school-age daughters, so
a) it’s going to take us about a bazillion years to get all the way across at 18-month-old speed, so why don’t you just GO and make life easier for all of us.
and, much more importantly…
b) I am trying to teach them NOT TO WANDER ONTO THE ROAD IN FRONT OF CARS! So when you stop and encourage us to walk across the road in front of you, this is NOT HELPING!
Granted, I don’t expect that this point will be as obvious to the general-public-not-necessarily-in-frequent-care-of-small-kids as it is to me. However, I DO expect that when I’m standing on the kerb waving you on with big handsignals, that you will ultimately get the point that for whatever reason I do not wish to take you up on your kind offer. Keep driving already!
Do you even read your own posts, specifically § 46.2-923?
I am really tired of making this point. It is spelled out quite clearly in the OP. In caps. Read it again. Here’s a hint. It is the crux of the complaint.
This is my take on it:
A foot and bike path is sort of a road where motor vehicles are prohibited. Bikes have to follow the rules of the road, so a stop sign on the bike path means that bikes should stop. However pedestrians AFAIK don’t have to obey those stop signs, and that road-bikepath intersection forms a crosswalk giving pedestrians right of way.
So Bikes should yield to cars and pedestrians, cars should yield to pedestrians.
From the OP.
“peds” refers to pedestrians.
don’t ask and others who see my point – thank you. That motorists should yield to pedestrians who are in the crosswalk is so obvious that there barely needs to be a law about it. Any fool is going to stop when there’s a human being in the road, legally or otherwise. My issue is with drivers who stop when there are pedestrians just standing near the road, or approaching it. As Swallowed My Cellphone illustrated, someone standing on the sidewalk doesn’t necessarily want to cross anyway. And I doubt there’s a law anywhere in the country that requires motorists to slam on the brakes whenever a pedestrian happens to be anywhere in their field of vision.
Are you out of your fucking mind?? This has got to be one of the most asinine (and dangerous) things I’ve read in months. When I attempt to cross a street, I hold out my hand to indicate that I intend to do so, then wait for the traffic to stop, because stepping out into moving traffic because I have the “right” increases a hundredfold the chances that I’m going to get a nice writeup in the paper on the obituary page.