Whose wrong? Walker or driver.

[CarDriver]

Saw a fairly close call when a car was making a turn on Admiral. The reason for the closeness was the fact that the man running on the sidewalk clearly didn’t want to break stride. I think the driver assumed he would slow down before crossing. Was the driver wrong or was the runner supposed to, if not stop at least slow down before crossing the street. Runner was not hit. Are there any actual laws covering this scenario?

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[side-walker]

Pretty sure drivers yield to pedestrians in all cases legally speaking. Sounds like there may be some vagueness around non-cross walk areas, depending on whether it’s considered an intersection or not.

Morally speaking, a vehicle is a deadly weapon and the operators of such vehicles need to respect that fact and the PRIVILEGE it is to drive a car at all.

SDOT resources with links to the RCWs for context: https://wsdot.wa.gov/travel/bicycling-walking/walking-rolling-washington/pedestrian-laws-safety

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[anonyme]

I don’t think you can know what either participant was thinking, but if the driver actually “thought” that the runner would pause that suggests two things. First, the driver expected that the runner would wait for him to turn; second, the driver saw the runner headed toward the crosswalk and therefore had no excuse not to yield. The other impossibility is that the runner would have been able to psychically intuit the intentions of all the drivers behind him and adjusted his gait to allow them right of way. It’s common sense that the runner should have looked over his shoulder before entering the street to make sure he’d been seen. But given the fact that eye contact is a myth, and that many, many drivers do not obey the law, this doesn’t guarantee safety for anyone. The driver would be wrong in any of these scenarios. Nor are there laws governing the speed at which a pedestrian can/must traverse a crosswalk.

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[Author]

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