You’re in your car and you’ve stopped at a crosswalk to let a pedestrian or pedestrians cross the street. There are no other pedestrians crossing the street except this one person or group. It’s not at an intersection so there’s not traffic light, pedestrian signal, or stop sign, similar or exactly like this. There may or may not be a median strip and there may be more lanes than just one each way.
How long do you wait before you go?
I wait until my forward progress will not result in my hitting them.
Number three, due to kayaker’s reasoning and giving a little leeway. If I start when they’ve cleared my lane, then by the time I’m in the space they used to be at, they’ll be firmly out of my way.
“Other”. I observe the law in my state (WA) which specifies that the pedestrian must be one lane away before I proceed. I interpret “one lane” as “one lane-width” between my lane and the lane the pedestrian occupies.
I like the one-lane-width margin - it allows for the possibility that the pedestrian might, for some reason suddenly change his/her mind about crossing. If I wait until they’re a lane-width away before proceeding, if they make an abrupt about-face they’re not going to immediately walk in front of my car - I have time to stop again if necessary, and they have time to see that I’m there.
Edit: I’ll add that I was a full-time pedestrian for about 14 years, from age 26 to 40, so had plenty of opportunity to observe how pedestrians and drivers interact, and evaluate what seemed safe or unsafe.
Exactly. Our neighbor to the south (Oregon) used to require drivers to remain stopped until the pedestrian had completely left the roadway (curb to curb, or equivalent). It sure made interesting times to watch drivers get so itchy waiting as a pedestrian crossed across four/six lanes of traffic before they could move.
I do see all the time in OR and WA some pedestrians will take-their-frickin’-sweet-time-to-cross-the-street, knowing they are holding up traffic flow. Many just cross without even looking, assuming the law will protect them. What I want to know is why so many pedestrians think just stepping off the curb in a parking lot on private property is safe. To my knowledge, their assumed legal protection does not apply on private property.
Living in OR taught me to wait (one of the 2 answer A’s above), which I still do. This angers the other drivers of MD and VA no end, which is another positive.
Living in OR also taught me to drive with lights on all the time, which confuses people back east.
Other. In the intersection as pictured I would procede after he left the lane and stepped onto the median. If there is no median or divider I would stop until he has left the marked crossway. Coincidentally that is the law here. It used to be yeild to pedestrians. Now it specifically says stop for pedestrians.
When I had the arm cast on, cars would stop and wait until I was safely on the sidewalk. It was so nice.
When I got the cast off, most cars only waited until they were sure they could clear my ass.
It’s illegal here not to wait until they’re on the other side of the street or at least one lane over or something, but I usually just wait until they pass me anyway or I’d never get anywhere. Some people are soo slow.
I wait until the ped is nearing the opposite curb, with no timer placed.
I give 'em a warning blast with the horn, count “oneonethousand” and then floor it.
Wait until I’m absolutely sure I’m not going to hit them. Though most of the places where it’s likely to happen without lights or stop signs or some form of traffic controls, that would mean they would be out of the street by that point.
If there’s a law regarding this in my state, they certainly never covered it in driver’s training.
This is a very timely thread.
This morning, a cop asked me to come over to his cruiser. He told me some interesting things. The state law here is to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk. Every now and then he’s out there busting people who don’t stop. He said that he and another cop have issued about 500 tickets so far, and it’s a $200 ticket. In just about every case, it’s someone from in state but out of town.
He then asked if I’d write to his captain and tell him what a bang-up job this guy is doing. He wrote down the mailing address for me. It’s sitting next to me right now.
If I could find an e-mail for the guy, I might help out. But write a letter, put it in an envelope, address it, stamp it, and mail it? I don’t know…
I wait until the pedestrian is so close to the opposite curb that his stepping up on to it is meaningfully inevitable. When he’s one or two steps away from it, and still walking in that direction.
If, for some reason, the guy gets to within one step of the destination curb…and then stops…I feel I ought to wait, because he might suddenly spin about and tear back the way he came. I’ve seen 'em do it!
Then there was the guy who stopped, right exactly in the middle of my lane, and simply waited there, deep in some kind of uffish thought. I finally yelled at him a little. And then there was the crazy street lunatic who stood there and screamed obscenities at everyone in sight, making absurd little darts out of the crosswalk and into traffic. That got a 9-1-1 call.
Ah, humanity!
Georgia law requires cars to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk and wait until they’re out of the crosswalk. As Duckster mentioned, this can take a while with wider streets.
Ain’t nobody got time fo dat!
On a roadway with 3 or 4 lanes in each direction AND a turn lane, a slow-moving walker will take quite a bit of time. I therefore commit a misdemeanor weekly by continuing my progress when said impediment is out of any danger from me.
What really pisses me off is drivers who stop for thesesigns no matter what. It’s a fucking reminder, not the Second Commandment. If there’s not a pedestrian in sight, you don’t have to fucking stop! Some cities around Atlanta have sprinkled them liberally around, and in some spots you’ll have 4 or 5 in less than 100 yards. And the idiots stop at every damn one.
Mostly when I have to pee.
In Vegas, a few months back, someone got hit in a crosswalk, so the police started enforcing insane policy. If you’re in a road that has 2 straight lanes, a left and right turn lane, a median, 6-8 lanes in total… and you’re going to make a right turn, and the guy passed you long ago, he’s crossing the other side of the street 5 lanes to your left, and you take a right turn, they’re going to give you a ticket. He has to be completely clear of the intersection no matter how far away he is.
In California, to the best of my understanding, you must stop when a pedestrian is crossing the street, and stay stopped until the pedestrian is out of the street. This is true whether the pedestrian is in a crosswalk or not. Even if pedestrian is jay-walking, pedestrian is protected. In the case of jay-walking pedestrian, pedestrian could get a ticket for that, but a driver still has to stop, otherwise driver can get a ticket too.
BUT, also, to the best of my knowledge, divided roadways are treated as being, effectively, two separate roadways. So while a pedestrian is crossing the southbound lanes of a divided road, the northbound cars don’t have to stop. That’s how I understand the rule.
This applies to stopping for school buses too. When a school bus is stopped with red lights a-flashing, cars in both directions must stop if roadway is undivided, but on a divided road, cars only need to stop on the same side that the bus is on. A lot of drivers don’t seem to know that. I think this rule also applies to roads of four or more lanes (two each way), even if there is no center divider, but I’m less sure about that.
I hate those signs. I’m pretty sure that they’re intended to mean what you say, but a red octagon with the word “stop” in it means to stop no matter what. Combining that with “for [pedestrians]” is nonsensical. There’s a perfectly good yield version that doesn’t make contradictory commands.
State law says I only have to worry about them while they’re crossing my lane. So unless they’re acting squirrelly and seem likely to dodge back my way (kids, mostly), once they’re safely past, I go.
I took driver’s training way back in 1982 or so. I only remember the law because I reviewed the WA State driver’s manual before I got my license back about 6 years ago.
We used to have a “colorful personality” in our town — “Crazy Evelyn” — who pulled crap like that. My sister, still a teenager at the time, almost creamed her once. She was driving down one of our three-lane, one-way streets, and happened to be the only moving vehicle in the particular stretch of road at the time. Way up ahead of her, she saw Evelyn standing at the corner, staring down the street at her. And just as my sister approached the intersection, green light and all, Evelyn boldly stepped off the curb right into my sister’s path. Screeching of brakes ensued, followed by Evelyn standing in the middle of the street in front of my sister’s car, shaking her fist and unleashing a stream of profanity.
A nearby police officer happened to see the whole thing. He removed Evelyn from the street and waved my sister on.
