Midblock Beacon Crosswalk and a Stopped Car in the Next Lane
It is 9:40 p.m. on a four-lane arterial posted 45 mph, two lanes in each direction, with double yellow lines and no raised median. Ahead is a marked midblock crosswalk with a pedestrian-crossing sign and an overhead yellow beacon that is flashing. You are in the left lane. A sedan in the right lane about 40 feet ahead of you has stopped short of the crosswalk with its brake lights on. You cannot see anyone in the crosswalk on your side of the road, and it is possible the beacon was left flashing by someone who already crossed. Your lane is clear for at least 300 feet, and there is a green light at the next signal a block away. A car follows you at a normal gap. At the edge of your headlights a dark-clad pedestrian becomes visible on the far side of the road, moving left to right, still more than halfway across.
1. What does the stopped sedan in the adjacent lane tell you, and what do you do?
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Treat it as a warning, not as an obstacle to be gotten around. A vehicle stopped at a marked crosswalk with a flashing beacon is announcing a pedestrian - and the pedestrian is most likely on the far side of that vehicle, in the exact spot your headlights and sight line cannot reach.
What to do:
- Take your foot off the gas now, at 40 feet and 45 mph (about 66 ft/s) you are less than a second from passing that car.
- Stop before the crosswalk in your lane, level with or behind the sedan, not alongside it.
- Do not pass. Overtaking a vehicle stopped at a crosswalk is prohibited, and it is prohibited precisely because of the hidden-pedestrian geometry you are looking at.
- Assume the beacon means something. A flashing yellow pedestrian beacon is driver-activated; someone pushed the button or is still in the crossing. A beacon left running is a nuisance; a pedestrian you never saw is a fatality.
2. The pedestrian is on the other half of the road and moving away from your side. May you proceed?
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No. Three separate reasons, and any one of them is enough.
- They are in the crosswalk. A pedestrian in a marked crosswalk has the right-of-way for the whole crossing, not just the half in front of your bumper. They are not clear until they are out of your path and out of the crosswalk.
- Dark-clad pedestrian at night. You saw them late - at the edge of your headlights - which means your detection is marginal and their behavior is harder to read. Someone who is walking away can stop, turn back, or drop something.
- The beacon covers the whole crosswalk. It is not a per-lane signal. Its flash is an instruction to stop and yield to whoever is in the crossing, from either direction.
So you hold at the crosswalk line until the pedestrian finishes crossing and you can see the entire crosswalk and both approaches. Expect a second pedestrian to follow - people cross in pairs and groups far more often than alone, and the person behind is the one nobody sees.
3. The beacon stops flashing while the pedestrian is still in the crosswalk. Now what?
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Nothing changes about your obligation. The beacon is an advisory warning device; it is not the source of the pedestrian's right-of-way, and its timing is controlled by a pushbutton timer that has no idea where the pedestrian actually is. The duty to yield comes from the marked crosswalk, and the pedestrian is in it.
What to do:
- Stay stopped at the crosswalk line until the pedestrian has finished crossing your half of the roadway and is clear of your path.
- Keep scanning both directions - a companion may still be entering, and the beacon going dark is not evidence that the crossing is empty.
- Do not use the dark beacon as a justification to roll forward; if a collision happens, the state of the lights does not override the presence of a person in a marked crosswalk.
- Once the crossing is clear, move off deliberately. With the following car close behind and the next light green, accelerate smoothly rather than abruptly, and re-scan the right lane where the sedan is now pulling away.