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Comment by mwint | Hacker News Reader

“Right” is a strange word here, but there are absolutely cases where pedestrians have no right-of-way over cars.

In these cases, you can be run over and you (or your family) will have no legal recourse against the driver. Zero, nada, zilch. So in the legal sense, it is not true that a pedestrian always has the right to exist at any point on the earth without being run over.

In a moral sense, perhaps every driver has an obligation to try not to run over pedestrians. That might create a “right” in some moral/ethics frameworks, but it doesn’t exist as a legal concept in my state.

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If you don't mind sharing some examples I'd love to hear them, out of curiosity more than anything. Which situations (and in which country/countries) do pedestrians not have right-of-way over cars?

In America, at least in same States, pedestrians only have a right of way in a sidewalk or crosswalk. I all also add, stepping in front of a moving vehicle means having to obey the laws of physics.

They only have the right of way in a crosswalk WHEN they have the walk symbol. If a pedestrian enters a cross walk under a don't walk symbol they do not have the right of way.

In most countries that I know of (throughout Europe, the US, Japan), if you're on the road as a pedestrian, there's no law that protects you in case you get hit by a vehicle, it's considered your fault as a pedestrian.

The exceptions are street crossings or purely pedestrian streets, which have to be marked as such.

I don't expect this to be different anywhere in the world, since most paved roads are paved for vehicles, you don't really need pavement that much for pedestrians (well, you kind of need it for pedestrian with baby strollers or wheeled luggage & co).

That's definitely not the case in France, a pedestrian always have right of way over anything else, even on the highway.

"Le piéton est l'usager le plus protégé par le code de la route : il a, quoiqu'il arrive, toujours la priorité sur la chaussée"

For the highway it's a bit trickier than you're describing:

> Pour un piéton victime d’un accident, on retiendra faute inexcusable s’il «franchit des glissières de sécurité pour traverser une voie à grande circulation (alors qu’un passage souterrain existe à côté)», s’il «fait un effort particulier pour braver les règles de sécurité», ou encore s’il «contourne délibérément les obstacles lui interdisant l’accès à une voie rapide» ;

In 99% of the cases a pedestrian would have to go over a barrier to end up on a highway, as part of regular traffic.

I'm not counting someone from a broken down car on the side of the road as a pedestrian, since those are covered by different laws.

Not unexpected but TIL ! Thanks - my driver license instructor had definitely told me that pedestrians were always the most important

Argentina for one.

It depends on the country. In Japan pedestrians have the always have right of way, no matter what.

Not only that but in any road accident the bigger participant is automatically the guilty party. So huge trucks are very very careful while grandma with her trolley of vegetables trundles merrily along.

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