Who’s at Fault If I Cross at a Crosswalk That’s Red and Am Hit by a Car?

If you crossed against a red hand or Don’t Walk signal in California and a car hit you, fault is usually shared rather than assigned entirely to one side. California applies pure comparative negligence, so each party’s share is expressed as a percentage and your compensation is reduced by your share instead of being wiped out. Even a pedestrian who bears a large share of the blame can recover, because a driver who was speeding, looking at a phone, or simply not scanning the intersection has failed a duty of their own. There is also a question worth asking before anyone concedes fault: were you actually violating the signal, or did you step off the curb lawfully and get caught mid-crossing? Attorney Damoun Yazdi at The Accident Network Law Group evaluates pedestrian accident fault in cases throughout Southern California.

Key Takeaways

• Starting to cross against a steady Don’t Walk or upraised hand signal violates California Vehicle Code Section 21456(a)(3), which adds to your share of fault
• But Section 21456(a)(3) also protects the pedestrian who started crossing on the WALK signal and was only partially across when it changed. That pedestrian is directed to continue to the sidewalk or a safety zone and is not violating the statute
• California’s pure comparative negligence rule comes from Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804, not from Civil Code Section 1431.2, and it reduces recovery rather than barring it
• A statutory violation creates a rebuttable presumption of negligence under Evidence Code Section 669, not an automatic finding of fault
• Section 21456(b)(3) states expressly that the subdivision does not relieve a driver of the duty of exercising due care for the safety of any pedestrian within the roadway
• Since January 1, 2024, Section 21456(b)(1) bars a peace officer from stopping a pedestrian for a signal violation unless a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of collision, so the absence of a pedestrian citation proves very little
• Evidence of the driver’s speed, attention, and reaction is what moves the percentages, and it has to be gathered quickly

The Legal Effect of Crossing on Red

Vehicle Code Section 21456 sets out what each pedestrian control signal means. A steady Don’t Walk, Wait, or upraised hand symbol, and a flashing version of those symbols without a countdown, means a pedestrian facing the signal shall not start to cross. A flashing symbol accompanied by a countdown means a pedestrian may start to cross but must finish before the countdown ends and the steady symbol appears.

The subdivision most often overlooked is the second half of Section 21456(a)(3). A pedestrian who started the crossing while the WALK symbol was displayed and who has partially completed the crossing is directed to proceed to a sidewalk or safety zone, or otherwise leave the roadway, while the steady symbol shows. That pedestrian is doing exactly what the statute tells them to do. If you were struck in the second half of a crossing you began lawfully, the premise that you violated the signal may simply be wrong, and that is the first thing worth establishing in the investigation.

Where a pedestrian did start against a steady signal, the violation matters through Evidence Code Section 669, which creates a presumption of negligence when the violation proximately caused the injury, the injury was the kind the statute was designed to prevent, and the injured person belongs to the class the statute protects. Section 669(b) makes that presumption rebuttable. It is also worth noting how the violation is treated in practice: since Section 21456(b)(1) took effect on January 1, 2024, under AB 2147 (Stats. 2022, Ch. 957), an officer may not stop a pedestrian for a signal violation unless a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of a collision. A pedestrian who was hit and never cited should not assume the citation record settles anything either way.

How much weight the violation carries depends on the circumstances: how visible the signal was from where you stood, whether you looked before stepping off the curb, how far into the roadway you had traveled when struck, the lighting and weather, and whether you were otherwise moving with reasonable care.

The Driver’s Ongoing Duty of Care

A pedestrian’s signal violation does not license a driver to hit them. The statute itself says so. Section 21456(b)(2) provides that the subdivision does not relieve a pedestrian from the duty of using due care for their safety, and Section 21456(b)(3) provides, in parallel, that it does not relieve a driver of the duty of exercising due care for the safety of any pedestrian within the roadway. Those are two separate sentences imposing two separate duties, and they exist side by side in the same statute.

Vehicle Code Section 21950 works the same way, and its structure is frequently misdescribed. Subdivision (a) requires a driver to yield to a pedestrian in a marked or unmarked crosswalk, but that duty is qualified by the phrase ‘except as otherwise provided in this chapter,’ which is what accommodates signal-controlled intersections. Subdivision (b) is the pedestrian’s due care duty. Subdivision (c) requires a driver approaching a pedestrian in a crosswalk to exercise all due care and to reduce speed or take other action as necessary to safeguard the pedestrian. Subdivision (d) states that subdivision (b) does not relieve the driver of the duty of due care. In short, the driver’s independent obligations live in subdivisions (c) and (d), not in subdivision (b).

California Civil Code Section 1714 supplies the background rule that everyone is responsible for injury caused to another by a want of ordinary care. Applied to a driver entering an intersection on a green light, that means watching the crosswalks rather than only the signal head. Specific violations sharpen the point: Vehicle Code Section 22350, the basic speed law, prohibits driving faster than is reasonable or prudent for the conditions regardless of the posted limit, and Vehicle Code Section 23123.5 prohibits driving while holding and operating a handheld phone or wireless communications device. A driver who was doing either of those things when they failed to see a person in the roadway has a serious problem of their own.

How Fault Is Allocated

California juries are not given a schedule of percentages for this scenario, and no reliable published figures exist for what a typical red-signal pedestrian case produces. Allocation is decided case by case on the evidence. The factors that carry weight include the driver’s actual speed compared with a safe speed for the conditions, whether the driver was distracted or impaired, how much sight distance and reaction time the driver had, whether the pedestrian was visible against the background and the lighting, whether the pedestrian looked before entering the roadway, how much of the crossing the pedestrian had completed, and whether the pedestrian started lawfully on a WALK signal.

The arithmetic of pure comparative negligence is straightforward once a percentage is assigned. Under Li v. Yellow Cab Co., a plaintiff’s recovery is reduced in proportion to their own fault rather than eliminated, so a pedestrian assigned 60 percent of the fault still recovers 40 percent of proven damages. On $200,000 of proven damages, that is $80,000. That is an illustration of the mechanics, not a prediction about any particular case.

Our work is to develop the evidence that shifts the percentages: signal timing data and phase records from the city or county traffic engineer, intersection and nearby business video, event data recorder downloads showing speed and braking, phone records, and scene measurements establishing how long the pedestrian was visible before impact. Because pedestrians have no protective structure around them, the injuries in these collisions are often catastrophic, which means even a heavily reduced recovery can be significant, and every percentage point is worth fighting for.

California Laws Relevant to Red-Signal Pedestrian Claims

Vehicle Code Section 21456 (pedestrian control signals, including the protection for a pedestrian who started on WALK and the limit on officer stops), Vehicle Code Section 21950 (driver duties toward pedestrians in crosswalks), Vehicle Code Section 22350 (basic speed law), Vehicle Code Section 23123.5 (handheld device ban), Civil Code Section 1714 (general duty of ordinary care), Evidence Code Section 669 (rebuttable presumption of negligence from a statutory violation), Code of Civil Procedure Section 335.1 (two-year deadline for personal injury suits), Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804 (pure comparative negligence), and Vehicle Code Section 16056, amended by SB 1107 (Stats. 2022, Ch. 717), which set minimum auto liability limits at $30,000 per person, $60,000 per accident, and $15,000 property damage effective January 1, 2025, rising to $50,000, $100,000 and $25,000 on January 1, 2035.

Contact The Accident Network Law Group About Your Pedestrian Injury Claim

People in this situation often assume the case is over before it starts. An officer at the scene said the pedestrian was in the wrong, the adjuster repeats it, and the file gets closed. That is not how California law works. Being partly at fault reduces a recovery; it does not eliminate one. And in more cases than most people expect, the pedestrian was not violating the signal at all but was finishing a crossing they began lawfully. Attorney Damoun Yazdi, who spent 12 years handling California personal injury matters and served as a law clerk at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, is willing to look past the initial conclusion at what the signal timing, the video, and the vehicle data actually show.

The consultation is free and we work under a No Recovery, No Fee agreement, so an attorney fee is owed only if we recover for you. We represent injured pedestrians in Costa Mesa, Riverside, Rancho Cucamonga, Apple Valley, Victorville, and Bakersfield, and throughout Southern California. Se habla espanol.

Legal Disclaimer

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The outcome of any case depends on its specific facts and circumstances. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Contact The Accident Network Law Group for advice about your individual situation.