The Crosswalk You Cannot See

Pedestrian conflicts here concentrate in a handful of settings: downtown grids, beach and shopping districts, the blocks around transit stops, and residential streets near schools and parks. Two mechanisms cause almost all of them — drivers not seeing people, and drivers not expecting people where they are perfectly entitled to be.

Unmarked crosswalks are still crosswalks

This is the most commonly misunderstood rule on the road. A crosswalk does not have to be painted. Under Vehicle Code section 275, a crosswalk includes the part of the roadway within the prolongation of the sidewalk lines at an intersection — in plain terms, the invisible extension of the sidewalk straight across the street. Someone crossing at an ordinary residential corner with no paint on the ground is generally in a crosswalk.

Vehicle Code section 21950 then requires drivers to yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing within any marked crosswalk, or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. Drivers who believe crossing only counts between painted lines are working from a rule that does not exist, and that belief is exactly what produces the late reaction at an unmarked corner.

The same section says something people forget in the other direction: a pedestrian may not suddenly leave a curb into the path of a vehicle close enough to be a hazard, and the duty of care runs both ways. But the driver's obligation to exercise due care does not evaporate because someone stepped out where you did not want them to.

The sight line problem

A car parked right up to the corner blocks the view of anyone about to step off the curb, and blocks their view of you. California now keeps parking back from the approach side of crosswalks — the rule commonly called daylighting, generally twenty feet — specifically to restore that sight line. Marking and enforcement of it vary from city to city, so treat every corner as potentially obstructed rather than assuming the curb has been cleared.

Practically, that means two habits: approach corners at a speed that leaves room for someone appearing from behind a parked vehicle, and creep forward until you can actually see down the sidewalk before you commit to a turn.

Turns are the dangerous moment

Most driver-pedestrian conflicts happen during a turn, and the reason is where the driver is looking. You are watching for a gap in traffic, which means your eyes are pointed away from the crossing you are about to drive into. The fix is to make the crosswalk a separate check — find your gap, then look at the crossing, then move. Two seconds, in that order.

Never pass a vehicle that has stopped at a crosswalk. It stopped for a reason you cannot see yet, and driving around it is the mechanism behind the worst pedestrian collisions there are.

The conditions that make it harder here

• Low sun on east-west streets at either end of the day, which is most of our street grid and most of our commuting.
• Wet roads at night, where reflected light washes out the road surface and dark clothing simply disappears.
• Warm evenings, which put far more people on foot after dark than a driver's habits are calibrated for.
• Wide arterials with long blocks, where the nearest signal may be a quarter mile away and people cross mid-block because the alternative is a half-mile round trip.

Who to assume is not looking

People stepping out between parked cars mid-block. Children near schools and parks. Anyone carrying something with both hands. Anyone looking at a phone. Anyone who just got off a bus or a train, who is often crossing behind the vehicle that dropped them. None of that changes anyone's legal duties — it changes what a reasonable driver should be ready for.

If a collision happens

A person on foot has no protection, and the injuries are frequently to the head from the second impact with the ground rather than from the vehicle. Stop, call for medical help rather than accepting a curbside assurance that someone is fine, and provide the information required at an injury collision under Vehicle Code section 20003. Photograph the position of the vehicle, the crossing, the light conditions and any obstructions.

The coverage side is worth understanding before it happens: this is a bodily injury claim, and bodily injury limits are the part of a policy that a serious pedestrian claim can exhaust quickly. It is one of the few risks on this page you can do something about in advance.

If you have never checked your bodily injury limits, send us the declarations page — we will tell you what you carry and what more would cost, with no pressure either way.