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crossing an intersection." It is also in conflict with UVC §11-504 and similarly worded state laws that require drivers to "exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian or any person propelling a human powered vehicle and...exercise proper precaution upon observing any child or any obviously confused, incapacitated or intoxicated person." We do not know how drivers can--within a split second--distinguish such a person from one whose confusion, incapacity or intoxication is less obvious, or why the law values the life of other pedestrians less than the life of the child, the incapacitated or the intoxicated.
The courts have struggled in vain to reconcile the irreconcilable contradictions between statutory right-of-way rules and common law responsibilities. A Utah judge summed up the problem in these words:(12)
"This case is fraught with considerable difficulty arising out of conflicting principles of law. The first is the familiar principle that one must exercise due care for his own safety. The other is that a person having a right-of-way...ought to be protected in the exercise of that right, and is not bound to anticipate an unlawful or negligent act on the part of another."
Pedestrians are entitled to special consideration for reasons rarely discussed in traffic safety literature. Walking on the public street is a fundamental right while drivers need certain skills and qualifications to obtain a license: adequate eyesight, a knowledge of traffic regulations, the ability to read and to handle an automobile. Pedestrians need no skills or qualifications of any kind. Unlike the incompetent, drunken or reckless driver whose license may be suspended, the inattentive or drunken pedestrian and the impetuous, irresponsible child remain inevitable features of the traffic scene. While pedestrians should always use the utmost care, they should not be killed for an error of judgment, a traffic violation or an ill-conceived law. It is one thing to advise pedestrians to be careful and yield to vehicles, but quite another to have a legal mandate that turns a pedestrian's error of judgment into a violation of the law and makes him prima facie negligent in a civil suit. The ultimate responsibiliy for preventing an accident should lie with the motorist, just as it lies with anyone in charge of an instrument that can cause injury. But that is not the present policy of managing traffic or penalizing negligent homicide.
A driver who hits you outside of a crosswalk does not violate the law. Since you appear as the violator in the police report for failure to yield, the driver is unlikely to be prosecuted. You  can sue in a civil court, and innumerable court decisions have held that the pedestrian's negligence does not relieve the motorist of the duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid injury; but you have to prove that he could have avoided the collision. When he hits you on the crosswalk, the driver can claim you got suddenly into his path and he couldn't stop in time. Here again, you can sue in a civil court. A traffic court may impose a relatively small fine for failure to yield, but there is little likelihood of prosecution without evidence of speeding, reckless or drunken driving, fleeing from the scene of the accident, willful and wanton disregard of life, or some other unlawful
In Maryland, for example, the maximum fine for a traffic offense is $500, regardless of the consequences of the violation. The motorist who runs a red light and kills somebody pays the same fine as if no injury had occurred, but may have a number of demerit points assessed towards a possible suspension of the license. An accumulation of 12 points leads to a suspension of 60-days. The defendant has the option to forfeit a fine of $50 (formerly $40) without having to appear in court. A $40 fine, plus three demerit points, was the penalty paid by a driver who killed a blind couple and their guide dog after he pulled around another car that had stopped to let the couple pass.(13)
Normally, the right of one person ends when it unreasonably intrudes on the rights of another. Except in self-defense, a householder may not kill or severely injure a burglar caught in a criminal act. Hit a parked car -- even one parked illegally -- and you get cited for reckless driving.
The pedestrian's right to corporal inviolability is not so highly rated. Every day, pedestrians are killed or injured for minor errors of judgment so that motorists, in defiance of the Basic Rule, UVC §11-801, and of §11-504, may travel at high speed on urban streets. Right-of-way rules are the only laws that permit one person to exercise his right to the extent that he may kill or injure another with virtual impunity. Intended to protect the pedestrian, the rules end up protecting the motorist from the penal consequences of disregarding UVC §11-504 and §11-801.
Better compliance with unsafe traffic laws and their stricter enforcement are unlikely to lower the accident toll. The solution lies in a return to common law principles, under which the driver must do all he can to avoid a collision, and the pedestrian should cross when it is safe and wait when it is unsafe.

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