Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version Vortex 1.0 6/6/83; site vortex.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!vortex!lauren From: Lauren Weinstein Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Pedestrian right of way / Rotaries Message-ID: <96@vortex.UUCP> Date: Tue, 9-Aug-83 06:18:16 EDT Article-I.D.: vortex.96 Posted: Tue Aug 9 06:18:16 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 9-Aug-83 22:31:53 EDT Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles Lines: 34 Greetings. I did some checking, and it appears that my original assumption was correct -- the pedestrian in California has the legal right of way over motor vehicles at ALL TIMES. (In fact, I was able to find someone who became violent when I mentioned this, because they missed just this question on a DMV driver's test.) I don't have the complete DMV regulation handy right now, though I could dig it out exactly if really necessary. What this really amounts to is that there is no case where a motor vehicle has a *legal* right to hit a pedestrian. If a twit jumps out in the middle of the street, you aren't allowed to just hit him/her and later say, "Well, I had the right of way!" You are supposed to try avoid that person, since it is assumed that you'll do him or her much more damage than they'll do you if a collision occurs. This does *not* say that it is legal for a pedestrian to cross streets randomly or take other unsafe actions -- only that once they've done so, the fact that their action is illegal does not give the drivers a legal "excuse" to hit them. Frankly, I consider the California law to be quite sensible in a practical sense. --- By the way, I really want to congratulate that fellow who set up the Boston area with all of those really NIFTY "rotaries". Man, I'd seen a couple of little "traffic circles" around L.A. (nobody ever calls them by the name "rotaries") in *very* low traffic (residential) areas of Beverly Hills, and I even remember a larger circle in a slightly busier area of Long Beach. But you Bostonians out there have taken them to the N'th degree. I mean, there were rotaries out there that really needed 9-way traffic signals to be handled properly! I'll admit that rotaries can be convenient in low traffic situations, but some of the ones I recall from out there still give me cold chills when I think about them! --Lauren--