Malloy. Pete Malloy is the Adam-12 ossifer. McCoy is the one that would prosecute people in NYC that ran over pedestrians. I remember 4 or 5 episodes of that off he top o’ me 'ead.
These situations don’t come up too much where I live. While we have nice sidewalks, and all major intersections are walk/don’t walk controlled, no one walks out here. At least, not past 7 am.
The pedestrian rule that gets me is, you’re not supposed to turn right into a crosswalk if there is a pedestrian anywhere in it. Now in Mesa, the major streets are four lane, with a median/left turn lane, and often a short right turn lane. So the lone pedestrian crossing has to go six lanes to cross. If I’m turning right, by the law I have to wait until said pedestrian clears the crosswalk. That’s just ridiculous. I’m not going to hit them, and the line behind me doesn’t care for my excessive compliance.
Fortunately, as noted, it doesn’t come up too often.
Yes, I would stop, assuming I notice them, which is not assured. Especially with the crosswalk pole itself between the pedestrian and me. So long as they are merely on the truncated dome surface and not in the actual crosswalk, I would say that I’m being “nice” and it is not a strict obligation. But it also depends on their body language. If they are clearly intending to cross, that is a stronger obligation than someone facing away or standing there picking their butt.
If I were the pedestrian, I would stand looking at the cars to my left with myself clearly visible and look for cars slowing down before continuing into the lane of vehicle traffic. In this case, there is also a bike lane, so I would feel safe venturing into the bike lane (which also clearly puts me in the crosswalk, makes me more visible to motor vehicles, and makes clear that I am intending to cross).
The problem here is that there is a lot more non-verbal communication involved in driving and even walking than most people acknowledge. That sort of communication is impossible to formalize and isn’t something that can be written into law.
In the situation exactly as you describe, I probably would not stop. If, OTOH, the pedestrian had pushed the button and the lights were flashing, I would definitely stop if I didn’t have to slam my brakes to do so. When I see the lights flashing, I slow down. If I see a pedestrian in/near the crosswalk, I stop. If I don’t, I proceed with caution. Absent the lights, however, if I see somebody facing the street standing on the bumps, I’d probably stop if I could do so safely without getting rear ended.
I don’t know what the California Vehicle Code says about this kind of situation, but a CHP officer who does a lot of education/outreach told me that he considers the median to be a kind of border. Once the pedestrian has made it to that median, traffic behind the pedestrian may proceed safely, and traffic in front of the pedestrian must yield the right of way to said pedestrian.
Sorry, I’m not a traffic engineer, but i used to hang with them and give them money, lotsa money. For a few years i was on the local Metropolitan Planning Organization, the path the funds take to get to projects as the money comes down from state and federal governments and is assigned to road, transit, bike, pedestrian, and such projects.
Jaywalking laws were historically enacted to improve traffic flow as more cars were sold and used. The public voice was that it was for the safety of the pedestrians, but the speakers were almost universally the auto industry. It is truly a political question. The are currently some advocates for laws allowing pedestrians to cross wherever and whenever they want and making drivers slow down and watch for them in dense urban areas.
Seriously, one of the engineers said that the flashy light thingys with buttons are only to get the cars to slow down to 30 before they hit anyone. Cars rule.
This sounds like you’re under the mistaken impression that pedestrian crossovers exist across high-speed highways. They do not. Pedestrian crossings at major intersections are associated with traffic lights and “Walk/Don’t Walk” signals. Pedestrian crossings not at intersections are typically placed at residential safe zones where traffic speeds are low and where children may frequently be crossing, such as near schools and playgrounds. Anyone who rear-ends another car in this environment is either speeding or following too close or both, and deserves what they get for treating a residential safe zone as their own personal race track.
As I said earlier, for this reason, here in Ontario at least, when someone is about to cross, and in all circumstances when the amber lights are flashing, traffic must come to a complete stop and remain so if lights are flashing until no one else is about to cross and the entire roadway is clear, not just their side of it. Failure to do so is a serious traffic offense.
Your position sounds more like it comes from an automobile or driver advocacy group or the automobile manufacturers’ association, and certainly not from the viewpoint of parents, especially parents of small children – children who’ve been taught to press the button to activate the crossing lights, and have come to believe that they will then be safe.
We here in CA do not have such lights, except maybe in a few areas I do not go into.
But how about without any crossing lights? There is a 4 way, with crosswalks, no lights. Someone is standing on the corner- do we stop? Or wait until they have at least stepped into the crosswalk and are looking towards traffic?
We here in Oakland CA certainly do have such lights. There’s a particularly stupid one near me at the bottom of a steep hill carrying traffic just exiting a freeway. I suppose the traffic engineers were reluctant to slow the flow of traffic unless absolutely necessary but the ambiguity of the flashing lights makes being a pedestrian there perilous.
I’m 70 and have received one moving violation in my life (of course I’ve been stopped many times but I have no problem being polite and respectful and utterly compliant with officers). That ticket still sticks in my craw: I was driving slowly along a deserted beachfront street looking for a parking spot, in no hurry whatsoever. A cop was behind me, and no other cars anywhere in any direction. I approached an intersection with a pedestrian standing in the gutter just off the curb so I stopped at the limit line just as I should.
The pedestrian, for whatever reason, waved me through with a pleasant smile. I smiled back and thanked him with a wave, and slowly proceeded across the intersection. Ticket.
This happened in Alameda, an island community across the bay from San Francisco, well known for strict enforcement so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. But the previous evening I’d been circling Union Square in downtown SF during the holiday shopping season where hundreds of pedestrians are streaming across every corner, enveloping vehicles in their tracks regardless of the signals. Sigh.
There’s one in Berkeley at the Ashby/Hillegas intersection. Stupidest name ever for a traffic control device: Cross HaWK. The ‘HaWK’ is a faux acronym for “High intensity Activated cross WalK”. No idea how they move the “a” for the acronym. I’ve seen more, but that’s the only one whose location I recall.
They are starting to appear in many places here in California. Not sure if there are any legal requirements attached to them. Flashing yellow lights are generally just alerting people to hazards. California law requires vehicles to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. A legal crosswalk is not necessarily marked. It is an extension of a sidewalk. Existing law says that cars have to stop for pedestrians whether they activated the flashing lights or not. The drivers handbook points out that having the right of way does not do you much good if the driver does not see you.
California loves their acronyms and abbreviations! I haven’t been there in many years but at the time pedestrian crossings were marked by signs that said “XING”. To a visitor driver like myself it wasn’t immediately clear what this meant, and would likely have meant even less to a foreigner. Of course I would naturally always yield to a pedestrian, but my immediate first thought on seeing these signs was “Xing to you, too, and yo momma!”.
I don’t know if this is a common international standard, but here in Ontario pedestrian crossings (as opposed to just normal intersections) are marked by a series of wide bright yellow bands perpendicular to the street and extending from one side to the other, and a graphic sign showing a person crossing. Almost always, there is also an overhead beam that bears the flashing amber lights, which are activated by a push button.
Stopping at these crosswalks is absolutely mandatory in the same way, and for much the same reason, as stopping for a school bus with its lights flashing.
I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of accidents, including pedestrian fatalities, are caused by one of the most dangerous creatures on earth, the infamous Driver in a Hurry.
Maybe, but pedestrians in all black, crossing without looking on a dark street, with their nose in their phone, might be up there. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sez most accidents are caused by distracted driving, but yeah speeding is up there in #2.
Agreed with the first point – sometimes the victim is at least partly to blame, especially if the victim is on one of those dangerous little push-scooters that can go remarkably fast, especially downhill. They can go much faster than the posted residential speed limit for cars. They’re especially invisible at dusk and later, because they have no lights, and the urchins riding them typically have no reflective markings and no sense. Pedestrians at least are relatively slow-moving.
As to the dangers of speeding, for sure, but that’s not what I meant. The classically dangerous “driver in a hurry” is not necessarily just a speeder, but the guy who runs a late yellow light and smashes into the car making a left-hand turn, the stop-sign runner, the guy making a fast left-hand turn and runs over a pedestrian trying to cross on the intersecting street, the guy making an illegal U-turn for which none of the traffic controls and safeguards were designed, and on and on and on. And I’m paying for these fuckers, despite never having had an accident claim in my life, because that’s just how insurance works. I get a good insurance rate, but it’s very far from free.
The bottom line is that although unsafe practices by pedestrians and kids on bicycles and scooters can be a contributing factor to injuries and fatalities, the Driver in a Hurry makes these accidents far, far more likely.