If u run a yellow light and hit a pedestrian who is jaywalking.. who is at fault?

today i was on my way home from work and i ran a yellow light at 50 mph.. there was a pedestrian who decided that he would cross the street before the walk signal came on because according to him.. he was in a hurry to get to the other side and smoke a "phat" one.. i braked and he ended up with a few bruises on his knees. half of his bike was also totalled. So is it my fault or his fault? he was jaywalking and when i hit him.. the light had JUST turned red.. my fiance ended up coming to the rescue and paying him 250 for the bike. A couple of witnesses also said that they saw him almost get hit by another semi-truck a couple minutes before i came by. in my honest opinion i think this guy is out for money.. what do u think?

cudds

You are.

UCANTCME

Your fault........

ryanprague1

In the country I live in (Czech Republic), no matter what the occasion is on the road, even if it was clearly the pedestrian's fault that crossed on their red light, it'd always be the drivers fault.

Don't know how it is for you, but certainly needs to stop doing such things, before he gets himself badly hurt.

Fred C

So you were running the light? You were speeding as well? Since normal speed would have allowed you to stop safely, you would have no defence in court if you had been issued a citation. If you hadn't slept through drivers' ed, you would have heard the part about always watching for pedestrians. Children especially can dart out from anywhere. Be thankful it wasn't a child.
Slow down, stop running yellow lights. Controlled intersections make up something like 3% of the road system, and account for somewhere near 80% of accidents.

The yellow light, by the way, is the signal to clear the intersection, not to race through faster than the speed limit.

ModelFlyerChick

Yellow means slow down not speed up and race thru the intersection. In my state you would be 100% at fault because..
1) The pedestrian always has the right of way, even if they're jaywalking.
2) You ran a red light. If you cross an intersection on a yellow and it turns red before you exit the intersection it is counted as running a red light.

My suggestion to you is to slow down when you see the light turning yellow. Considering you were doing 50 my guess is that you were already speeding and sped up some more as soon as the light turned yellow.

I've been hit by a car before in a parking lot while walking in the crosswalk and sustained a similar level of injury, so I have an idea of how fast you really were going when you hit him and it certainly was NOT 50mph, more like typical parking lot speeds. This tells me that you had more than enough time to stop after the light turned yellow. If you had hit him at 50 he either would have died on the scene or would have needed life flight.

btw...If the pedestrian died on the scene you would have been charged with involuntary manslaughter (or whatever the term is when you kill someone with a motor vehicle, but not on purpose).

Crazy Horse

Sounds like he really needed the money, but why risk your life for a 'phat one'. If you had the yellow light, you were good to go. He shouldn't have been jaywalking in the first place. I don't see you at fault here.

By the way, you should have gotten the witnesses names and phone numbers just in case.

rock_starr_angel

Holy **** , what a scam.
The guy is obviously trying to get free money or he is so wasted that he can't think straight.... really how else would he get hit by 2 cars with in the same day? If it was not a scam on the guys part , I still would think it would be his fault because it is not illegal to run a yellow light as it is illegal to jay walk .... but cops would probably say it was your fault because the light was red when you hit the dude.

and oh my god if it is a scam what a stupidly dangerous way to make money!

David S.

Well if you have a witness to these events then you are not at fault. Were the police involved? If not then why does it matter? People are always out for a get rich quick scheme. All it takes is one lawsuit and he could be 1 million dollars richer.

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