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Matt Johnson, your statement is correct if the pedestrian had started to cross when the "man" was displayed (i.e., the white "walk" signal) and the light changed while he was crossing. The flashing red hand (as opposed to the steady red hand) means "Don't start; finish crossing as quickly as possible if you already started." There was a proposal to change this in the next edition of the MUTCD to provide that the flashing hand would allow a pedestrian to start crossing as long as he feels he can reasonably clear the crosswalk before the solid hand comes on, but the change was rejected for a number of different reasons.

Both this blog entry and the quoted material from the Halsey article state that the pedestrians in this case ignored the flashing red hand and started across the road. If that's true, then they were in the wrong. If the driver could have reasonably avoided hitting them, then tort law obligates him to do so, but the key there is "reasonably," and the information currently presented isn't enough to allow for an assessment of that issue.

by Rich on Jan 20, 2011 12:25 pm • link • report

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