Interviewer: After several recent hit and run crashes on Wolf Road and Route 7, some involving pedestrians who were not in the crosswalk, it got us thinking, what are your rights in a situation like this, and who’s held liable in the event of a crash? So we’ve got managing partner Paul Harding here from Harding Mazzotti. So, what are the responsibilities here for drivers and pedestrians?
Paul: So both drivers and pedestrians have responsibilities. You know when you’re a pedestrian you’re supposed to walk in the crosswalk if there is one and pay attention and drivers have the responsibility to make sure that they stay within the lines, have all the rules, but they have a greater responsibility not to make contact with pedestrians. Just the logic of how you, you know, that the size of the vehicle and what will happen when you hit a pedestrian. But under no circumstances can someone driving a car leave the scene of an accident.
Interviewer: Right. And so then what if the rules are broken?
Paul: Yeah. So, you know, we’ve heard of jaywalking, but rarely is there a ticket for jaywalking for a pedestrian. But for somebody, you know, in a car, if you’re on your cell phone, you could have a criminal charge. If you are in violation of some other rules, and drinking and driving, you’re going to jail, but leaving the scene of an accident can be either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on how serious you’ve injured the pedestrian.
Interviewer: And because this does happen who is liable in a situation where the hit and run happens outside of a crosswalk?
Paul: You know, generally, it’s gonna be the car.
Interviewer: Still?
Paul: Yeah. It might be a little, what they call a little joint several liability, so there might be a little bit of get, but generally, you have the duty as an operator of the vehicle to not hit pedestrians. Now, if you’ve got someone who’s darting out and just kind of running in front of you, there’s no liability there. There just isn’t, but, you know, if someone’s on the edge of the road, you just got to slow down or move over, even though they may be a little inside where they should be.
Interviewer: Right. And are there other circumstances where liability comes up, other issues?
Paul: Well, you know, one of the things is that, you know, they look at certain intersections that are dangerous. You know, we see it in Colony Center. Now, you see this big, big sort of median put up where you can’t run across Colony Center to the other side. It’s connected to County Community College. Same thing, right? Well, why? Because there were a lot of pedestrians hit there. So municipalities have a duty to look at dangerous intersections and decide is there something structurally they can do to make it safe or was it designed unsafe. So yeah, they could have some liability, too. And so, when we see multiple accidents at a specific intersection, we go back and sort of look to see what could have been done differently, even from a design perspective.
Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. All right, Paul. Thank you so much.
Paul: Absolutely.
Interviewer: For more info covered in our weekly What Are Your Rights segments, or to send us a story idea, just head to our website cbs6albany.com.
