Comment by gowld
5 days ago
> I realised that when on a crosswalk drivers will come sailing at you and will cross behind you as you cross over. That is illegal here.
It's illegal in most if not all of USA too, but no one cares in practice. Legally, even when a car driver and a pedestrian both have access to a lane separately, if both are present, then a car driver must give a full lane-width of space to a pedestrian crossing or at the corner.
Also, even when a pedestrian is committing the auto-industry-invented crime of "jaywalking", the pedestrian still has the right of way in traffic, unless it is physically impossible for the car driver to avoid the collision. Car drivers are not judge/jury/executioner.
(Nit: "Cars" don't "drive" (yet, in most places). "Car drivers" drive cars.)
I see people more and more ignoring this rule too on wider non light controlled (Zebra) crossings. Sadly a lot of them are taxi drivers and they are often recent immigrants. Rules vary a lot, but in Europe the general rule seems to be that the driver is not penalised for crossing lane of a crosswalk behind a pedestrian after they have passed the middle of the road. I have no idea if that is actual law, but you see it in France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Czechia and Spain for sure (as in I have witnessed it there first hand.)
"Cars driving at you" is probably a dialectical thing.