Who would be at fault here, driver or pedestrian? (Pedestrian hit by vehicle)

In My Humble Opinion
81

This is vehicular assault in my state:

“A person is guilty of assault by auto or vessel when the person drives a vehicle or vessel recklessly and causes either serious bodily injury or bodily injury to another. Assault by auto or vessel is a crime of the fourth degree if serious bodily injury results and is a disorderly persons offense if bodily injury results. Proof that the defendant was operating a hand-held wireless telephone while driving a motor vehicle in violation of section …may give rise to an inference that the defendant was driving recklessly.”

Later in the statute it explains that if the injury is caused by a DWI then the degree of crime is automatically higher.

82

When my view is obstructed by stopped vehicles, yeah, i do. I’ve even avoided accidents from a car running a red light by doing that. (I was able to stop in time.) I actually witnessed a non-accident just a week ago where a kid on a scooter came out of nowhere to cross in front of traffic (there was a pedestrian path intersecting the road). I was walking on the sidewalk with friends. The small truck screetched to a stop and didn’t hit the kid. One of my friends said, “I’d testify the driver wasn’t at fault”, and i pointed out that the driver had stopped in time, so there must have actually been time to do so.

I used to work in an auto insurance claims department. My boss pointed out that good drivers have fewer not-at-fault claims, too.

Was the driver legally at fault? A jury would have to decide based on the details i didn’t want to watch, and on the laws of that jurisdiction. But the legal theory of why you can’t just go barreling through a green light without looking is that you have an obligation to drive safely.

83

It’s clear from watching the video that it’s completely the pedestrian’s fault, unless the driver was going at excessive speed (I don’t know what the speed limit there is). The pedestrian runs out from behind the truck at speed without even looking to see if there’s an oncoming vehicle, and the light is clearly green - not ‘just turned green’, but green for the entire approaching time.

If I look at the moment the pedestrian first becomes visible, and it looks to me like the driver hits the brakes pretty much immediately, it is clear the pedestrian had plenty of time to stop well before intersecting the driver’s path. Had she been bothering to look in the direction of potentially oncoming traffic, she would have seen the approaching vehicle and not entered that vehicle’s path. Instead, she’s looking completely in the opposite direction and doesn’t appear to take notice of the oncoming vehicle until just before the impact, through her peripheral vision, causing her to instinctively raise her arm against the oncoming object.

Now, I’m answering the question not from a legal standpoint, but from the simple viewpoint of basing it on reality and reasonable expectations of behavior from everyone involved, and simply put, the reasonable expectation of behavior is on the pedestrian to bloody well look for oncoming traffic before stepping into its path, especially if they’re crossing when they’re not supposed to.

84

Thank you. THIS is a point of view that I agree with.

I think we can assume the driver is going the speed limit. If the driver were exceeding the speed limit, then the video producer is giving us incomplete information. So, it’s safe to assume the driver is not exceeding the speed limit.

The only thing I might add is for the driver to cover the brakes but not necessarily to slow down. Cover the brake pedal, just in case there’s someone in the crosswalk they cannot see. But the light has been green, as you say, and the driver has the right of way. If another driver is following, then if the driver were to slow down then that might cause an accident with that following driver.

It becomes a problem on the roads when drivers who have the right of way start yielding their right of way to others. That serves to confuse other drivers, and that leads to accidents.

Otherwise, @Mnemnosyne , you are spot on!

85

Here in Japan, drivers face prison time of up to seven years if the pedestrian is seriously hurt or killed, even if no drugs or alcohol were involved.

Note that paying the victim’s family a substantial settlement can lead to lesser charges or the case being dismissed.

If the driver has had even the tiniest amount of alcohol, then it’s much worse.

It doesn’t look like Japan, and Japan zebra crossings are painted in white. I’ve never seen double yellow lines painted by the curb, either. On a quick glance, the No U turn sign looks different, but it’s not really clear.

It doesn’t look like the Hong Kong I’m familiar with but it could be Singapore.

86

I live in your state and this is definitely not true. We have zebra crossings at lights all the time in NJ. Here’s an example:

312 County Rte 577 - Google Maps

87

The thing that jumped at me about that video, was all the pedestrians on the left obeying the Walk Light and waiting as they should (and also how close they were to the street). If I was the driver of that car, my eyes would have been focused left to make sure a child or something didn’t run into the street from the left.

88

Yeah. The pedestrian is guilty of insane degrees of recklessness with their own life and the lives of anyone the car might hit while swerving to avoid that person. The driver is guilty, at most, of the typical degree of semi-attentiveness that 90% of drivers exhibit 90% of the time.

Spending every second you’re driving in an edge-of-the-seat uber-defensive mentality with back up plans for what each of the 30 moving cars around you just might do, is a nice idea, but that’s not in fact how driving is done in the main. Nor should it be.

Accidents happen when two people are unusually sloppy at the same place and time. Or when one person is just plain behaving recklessly. This was the latter, and the reckless person was on foot.

89

True, but those pedestrians have the right-of-way, turning vehicles do not, and there is an expectation that you should be looking out for pedestrians when you’re making that turn. That doesn’t mean you should expect to see a pedestrian coming from the left, crossing against the light.

It is not obvious. The truck driver may be stopped to make a delivery, may have stalled, or may just not be paying attention as is so often the case now. Almost daily I have to honk at someone sitting at a green traffic light because they went into phone-checking mode while it was red and didn’t notice it turn green.

I don’t know if this applies to legal liability, but it’s often the case that insurance companies will levy some amount of fault (say 10-20%) on you if you made no effort to avoid the collision when you had a chance to. I think that tends to happen only when there’s video evidence, and it’s usually contested. But basically, not being fully aware of your surroundings makes you not entirely blameless, at least in the eyes of the insurance company.

There’s always fault somewhere, even if it’s the design(er) of the street/crossing. I’m confident that I could assign fault to pretty much any situation.

In this particular case, I don’t know if it’s 50/50 but it’s definitely not 0/100 or 100/0. The driver should’ve been more attentive and slowed down due to poor visibility. But the driver did have a green light, and the pedestrian crossed against a don’t walk signal. They both did wrong, but while the driver was probably driving too fast under the circumstances (i.e. driving the speed limit is still too fast), the pedestrian ran into cross traffic against a don’t walk signal without even looking. There’s a greater amount of negligence on the pedestrian in this situation IMO.

The law here in Ohio is similar to others in that pedestrians have right-of-way at all crosswalks (marked or unmarked), so drivers must (but usually don’t) stop. It is also specifically illegal to pass another vehicle stopped at a crosswalk to let a pedestrian cross, so it’s an additional charge on top of failing to yield for the pedestrian. However, if it’s a signalized intersection/crosswalk, then the pedestrian does not have right-of-way unless they have a walk signal, so those laws basically don’t apply anymore and it falls into the legal realm of operating a vehicle in a safe manner under the conditions present, etc. etc. I don’t think there’s any strict liability in that situation anymore.

There’s also this bit of the law: “No pedestrian shall suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle, trackless trolley, or streetcar which is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard.” That’s basically tailor-made to address this exact scenario, and it could lead to a no-fault judgment for the driver.

Side note, a disturbing number of people treat crossing a busy road just like this, by not looking and running as fast as possible. It seems particularly prevalent in Russian dashcam videos. I just don’t understand the mental breakdown that leads to this sort of behavior. Is it a symptom of being drunk? Are they used to disembarking city buses and other traffic stopping for them (I doubt that)? Are they coming from places that have very few motor vehicles and simply haven’t been picked off yet?

90

Yes, the pedestrian is an idiot. But the law and the court system can see the same thing you do in a different way. Maybe the Powers That Be will see it as just an accident, or maybe they’ll see it as reckless driving.

91

You seem to have confused the concept of “cause” with the concept of “fault”.

Causes can be determined. Fault is a legal moral concept only loosely connected to cause.

92

Maybe they live in places where there’s never a break in the traffic and if you’re ever going to get across the road that’s the only way to do it?

93

It’s a bit difficult to compare this to a UK situation as the crossing type is clearly not one of ours, but if we go by the road markings and assume that was a zebra crossing, then the pedestrian would have priority and there would be no excuse for a vehicle in the left lane to zoom through when a vehicle in the right lane is stopped before the crossing - any driver should expect that the stopped vehicle means the crossing is in use.

That still doesn’t mean the pedestrian was sensible to just run across like that, although it is common - it’s a sort of dash of embarrassed thanks when a vehicle stops to let you cross.

If we go by the traffic lights and assume this crossing is the equivalent of a UK pelican crossing, then the pedestrian is at fault for crossing when the lights are green for traffic.

94

Is there anything about it that makes you suspect it might be? It looks pretty real to me.

95

Honestly, nothing in particular. But the epidemic of fake (often AI-assisted) stories, photos and so forth is making me suspicious.

96

Perhaps, I’m using fault more like blame or responsibility. There’s always someone to blame, someone who’s responsible. Point being, I subscribe to the notion that there’s no such thing as an accident.

97

A bedrock of accident investigation is that there are always causes. None of those need have anything to do with “blame”.

We do not live in a zero defect world. The mere fact the statistics added up and a car left the roadway doesn’t necessarily mean the car, the roadway, or the driving was blameworthy.

Something caused the mishap. But nothing may be blameworthy. “Blame” implies a mistake. Which in turn implies a belief in a zero defect world. Which is primitive nonsense.

98

Yes. Mistakes are faults.

No, that’s ridiculous. It’s acknowledging the defects, and assigning blame/cause/fault accordingly.

99

All of those things are possible but they are much less likely than a pedestrian being in front of them. Again this is a pedestrian crossing not a junction, I see people stopped at junctions on a green light for all sorts of reasons but not pedestrian crossings which only change to allow someone to cross and don’t have long cycles. But if someone’s stopped at a pedestrian crossing it’s usually because a pedestrian is in front of them.

100

I haven’t lived in every state, but in most I’ve lived in, the law doesn’t state who has the right off way, but rather who must yield it. And that includes yielding to pedestrians when they’re where they shouldn’t be. Yes, even if you have a green light and they’re jaywalking.

The speed limit is the maximum speed you may drive under optimum conditions. An occluded crosswalk is not optimum conditions. If you can’t see, slow down.