Hit While Walking in Washington: The Crosswalk You Did Not Know You Were Standing In

An unmarked crosswalk is still a crosswalk

RCW 46.04.160 defines crosswalk as the portion of the roadway between the intersection area and a prolongation or connection of the farthest sidewalk line, and then adds the part people never hear: if there are no sidewalks, the crosswalk is the portion between the intersection area and a line ten feet from it. A marked crosswalk modifies that, but it does not create it.

Read plainly, that means the invisible continuation of the sidewalk across the street is a legal crosswalk. So is a ten-foot band at an intersection with no sidewalks at all. The paint is a convenience for drivers, not the thing that gives a person on foot the right of way.

This single definition decides a surprising number of cases, because the word jaywalking appears in a collision report whenever a pedestrian was not standing between two painted lines. Where the person was actually standing, measured against RCW 46.04.160, is a question of fact that nobody usually asks on the night it happens.

What the driver was required to do

RCW 46.61.235(1) says the operator of an approaching vehicle shall stop and remain stopped to allow a pedestrian to cross the roadway within an unmarked or marked crosswalk when the pedestrian is upon or within one lane of the half of the roadway the vehicle is traveling on, or onto which it is turning. The statute defines half of the roadway as all lanes carrying traffic in one direction, and the entire width of a one-way street.

Two phrases there do work. Stop and remain stopped is not yield. And within one lane of sets the trigger distance, which is why a driver who claims the pedestrian came out of nowhere is often describing a duty that had already attached a lane earlier.

RCW 46.61.235(4) adds the rule that catches the second car. When any vehicle is stopped at a crosswalk to let a pedestrian cross, a driver approaching from behind may not overtake and pass that stopped vehicle. The car that stops is also the car that hides you from the one behind it.

On the sidewalk the rule is simpler still. RCW 46.61.261(1) says the driver of a vehicle shall yield the right of way to any pedestrian on a sidewalk, which is the provision that governs the car coming out of a parking garage or across a driveway apron.

When the pedestrian is the one who has to yield

Honest answer: there are real limits, and an adjuster who knows them will use them.

RCW 46.61.240(1) says a pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk, or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, shall yield the right of way to all vehicles on the roadway. Mid-block crossings are where that bites. RCW 46.61.240(4) goes further between adjacent intersections where traffic-control signals are in operation, and requires crossing only in a marked crosswalk. RCW 46.61.240(3) requires yielding where a pedestrian tunnel or overhead crossing exists, and (5) and (6) address diagonal crossing and crossings where a sign prohibits it.

RCW 46.61.235(2) is the other one. A pedestrian shall not suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and move into the path of a vehicle that is so close it is impossible for the driver to stop. Note the actual standard, which is impossible rather than inconvenient or surprising.

There is also a provision written for people the rest of the chapter tends to forget. Under RCW 46.61.240(2), where curb ramps exist at or adjacent to intersections or at marked crosswalks elsewhere, persons with disabilities may enter the roadway from the curb ramps and cross within or as closely as practicable to the crosswalk.

Being partly in the wrong does not end your claim

Even where one of those provisions applies, the consequence is not what people assume. RCW 4.22.005 says contributory fault diminishes the award proportionately but does not bar recovery. There is no percentage at which a Washington claim switches off.

And a breach of a traffic statute is not the end of the analysis either. RCW 5.40.050 provides that breaking a statute, ordinance, or administrative rule is not negligence per se but may be considered as evidence of negligence, with four listed exceptions, the traffic one being driving under the influence. So crossing outside a crosswalk is evidence a jury weighs. It is not a verdict.

RCW 4.22.015 tells the jury to weigh both the nature of the conduct and the extent of its causal relation to the damages. A driver doing forty-five in a thirty while looking at a phone and a person crossing twenty feet from the corner are not the same kind of fault, and the statute says so.

Where the money comes from when you were on foot

A pedestrian has no vehicle damage claim and often assumes that means the only insurance in the case is the driver's. Frequently that is wrong, and the mistake is expensive.

Personal injury protection on an automobile policy is medical coverage that pays regardless of fault, and it commonly reaches the named insured and family members who are struck as pedestrians. RCW 48.22.085(1) requires PIP to be offered as an optional coverage on every automobile liability policy issued or renewed in this state, and RCW 48.22.085(2) says a named insured may reject it in writing. Whether it reaches you as a pedestrian is a question of the policy language, so the declarations page and the policy itself are worth pulling even if your own car was parked at home.

Underinsured motorist coverage is the other one, and it matters most when the driver who hit you carries Washington's minimum limits. RCW 48.22.030(2) requires that coverage on auto policies issued here, with an exception for a person operating or occupying a motorcycle and an exception for a vehicle owned by the household and not insured on the policy. A pedestrian is in neither exception.

If the driver left, RCW 48.22.030(2) reaches hit-and-run vehicles as well. And if no car ever touched you, RCW 48.22.030(8) defines a phantom vehicle and sets two conditions: the facts must be corroborated by competent evidence other than your own testimony, and the accident must be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency within seventy-two hours.

How long do I have to sue after being hit by a car as a pedestrian?

Three years. RCW 4.16.080(2) sets a three-year limit for any other injury to the person or rights of another, running from the date you were hit.

RCW 4.16.190 takes the time a claimant was under eighteen out of the limitation period, which matters because a large share of pedestrian injuries happen to children walking to school.

If the vehicle was a city bus, a county truck, a school district van, or a state vehicle, there is a claim you must present before you are allowed to file suit, and that deadline is far shorter. The article on claims against government entities covers it. RCW 46.61.235(5) is worth knowing too: an infraction committed in a school, playground, or crosswalk speed zone carries double the usual monetary penalty, and the penalty may not be waived, reduced, or suspended.

Where this goes wrong

The collision report says the pedestrian was not in a crosswalk, nobody measures the location against RCW 46.04.160, and the word jaywalking survives into the claim file as if it were a finding.

No photographs of the intersection. Whether there is a sidewalk, where its lines would continue, how far the curb ramp sits from the corner, and what a turning driver could actually see are all answerable from the scene and almost unanswerable later.

The pedestrian gives a recorded statement describing where they thought they were, in a parking lot they have crossed a thousand times, without ever having looked at the statute that defines where they actually were.

Nobody pulls the household auto policies, so a claim is valued against a minimum limits liability policy while PIP and underinsured motorist coverage sit unexamined.

The no-contact case is never reported to police inside seventy-two hours, and RCW 48.22.030(8) then supplies the reason the carrier denies it.

Settling before the orthopedic outcome is known. Pedestrians struck by cars take lower-leg and pelvic injuries that look one way at six weeks and another way after a second surgery.

What a lawyer does here

The early work is mostly about the intersection and the policies. Getting out to the scene and documenting where the sidewalk lines run, where the curb ramps are, and what the sight line was for a turning driver. Pulling any camera that looks at the corner, because business and transit video is routinely overwritten inside a month. Finding every policy that might reach you, including the ones on cars you were not in. Reading the collision report against the statutes instead of accepting its conclusions, since an officer's narrative is evidence and not a ruling. And telling you honestly where RCW 46.61.240 is a genuine problem in your case, because that answer changes what the claim is worth and you should hear it from your own lawyer first.

I handle pedestrian injury claims from my office in downtown Spokane, and I represent clients throughout Washington. I am admitted in Washington, WSBA #55307, and Oregon, OSB #242384.

If a car hit you while you were walking, I offer a free consultation by appointment at my Spokane office, 601 W. 1st Ave., Suite 1400. Bring the collision report number, the declarations pages for every auto policy in your household, and the names of anyone who stopped.

Disclaimer

This article is general information about Washington law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Law changes, and how it applies depends on facts specific to your situation. If you have a question about your own circumstances, speak with a lawyer.