Yield to vs. Stop for pedestrians in crosswalk

[vdeane]

If you're really curious, it's because drivers are expected to drive predictably and responsibly, and pedestrians are not.  Drivers are more-or-less adult, with training behind them.  Pedestrians may be children or no longer mentally able to drive.  They may change from a walk to a run or change directions in the middle of the street.  As a driver it's not only your job to miss them but also not to threaten them.  Try to be glad that you are able to drive rather than upset because you might have to wait a few seconds for someone who doesn't have that option.

I'd prefer that everybody be predictable.  I suppose it's hard for me to relate, being the oddball who was never that unpredictable in the first place.  Mom and I always yielded to cars when we walked places and had to cross the road.  And I was always mature for my age (in some ways; pretty much anything that tied to intellectual development, including things like "don't run in front of a car without looking", I was always at least 5 years ahead of everyone else; I could read road signs when I was 4, and maybe even back to infancy, if Mom's stories are to be taken at face value - I could always tell if we went a different way home).

[Sam]

We were until a few years ago. Now we're an "anywhere in the crosswalk" state.

Well, I'm happy to say I was wrong about that. New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law now says "yield the right of way, slowing down or stopping if need be" with no mention of where in the crosswalk.
http://ypdcrime.com/vt/article27.htm

[english si]

empirestate gets it right on Right-of-Way - the right vested in the person, not the vehicle. You can keep a route as a right of way, but ban access that uses certain vehicles (it is a bit harder to ban pedestrians though its perfectly do-able via a legal order): Footpaths (and sidewalks) by default do not allow cycles or motor vehicles; Bridleways allow horseriding and cycling as well as pedestrians, but not motor vehicles, etc.

The difference with trains is that a railroad is a dedicated right-of-way for train travel. Persons do not have a right-of-way on railroads, nor do their vehicles, so trains have the priority. And, yes, for practical reasons trains are given priority where the intersect public rights-of-way for reasons of maneuvering.

In the UK, plans for motorways before the Special Roads Act (which allows the construction of a public road that isn't a right-of-way) used the legal instruments for creating a light railway to stop the road becoming a right of way. Also, railways are fenced in the UK because of a legal requirement (presumably to make it clear that it's not a right of way)

In England (and Wales, which only relatively recently became a separate legal jurisdiction), private roads/paths have to physically (locked gate) deny access one day every year else, after 25 years, it becomes a right-of-way. There was a fence put up across a gap in a loose hedge (made of trees planted closely together) between a public footpath and the car park of a college near my house. It was challenged on the grounds of breaking the right of way and a new gap was created in a different place as a compromise agreement to avoid a protracted legal fight of "well I remember walking through there 25 years ago", "nonsense, it's only been there 24".

When it comes to crossings, there's a risk if I cross the road on a red man, and the car driver won't automatically get the book thrown at them if I'm run over as I'm not following the Highway Code's advice. However I am not breaking the law by doing it. As such, if I can cross without needing to stop vehicular traffic by pressing the button, I do.