I was of the belief that pedestrians *always* have legal right of way, crosswalks or not, and I always stop to let people cross, just out of courtesy.
Apparently, it’s only really “illegal” to run them down if they’re in a crosswalk.
Case in point, people often get killed crossing the Dual Highway, outside of Hagerstown and no one has been charged for hitting them, since they’ve all been hit when crossing in random areas.
At least once, the person who hit and killed someone was a Hagerstown cop.
Depends upon the jurisdiction, as to whether or not pedestrians always have the right of way. Urban and leftist areas (but I repeat myself) are almost always in the “always” column due to innate hostility to motor vehicles, in my opinion. Elsewhere, motor vehicle drivers aren’t presumed to be able to bring their vehicles to an immediate stop whenever some doofus decides to step into the roadway, and are not charged if striking a pedestrian is unavoidable.