What Does the Walking Man Actually Mean?
You’ve done it a thousand times. You walk up to a corner in Midtown, push the button, and wait for the little white walking man to light up. Then the orange hand starts flashing, a countdown appears, and you have to decide whether to go for it.
Jump to a section
- What Does the Walking Man Actually Mean?
- What Does OCGA 40-6-22 Say?
- Which Signals Does the Law Cover?
- What Does the WALK Signal Allow?
- What Does a Driver Have to Do When the WALK Signal Is On?
- Can You Start Crossing When the Hand Is Flashing?
- What If the Signal Changes While You’re Crossing?
- Does a Changing Signal Let a Driver Go?
- How Does 40-6-22 Affect an Injury Claim?
- What Damages Can You Recover If a Driver Didn’t Stop for You?
- Special Damages Are the Losses You Can Add Up
- General Damages Are the Losses Without a Price Tag
- What If Someone Was Killed?
- Why Do I Need a Lawyer?
- How to Hire the Best Car Wreck Lawyers in Atlanta
- The Wetherington Law Firm Believes a Case Can Make the Streets Safer
Most people have never thought about the fact that those signals are written into Georgia law. The law is O.C.G.A. 40-6-22, and it answers a lot of the questions we hear after someone is hit in a crosswalk. Can you start crossing when the hand is flashing? What happens if the signal changes while you’re in the middle of the street? Can a driver with a green light turn through the crosswalk while you’re in it?
These rules matter in an injury case because of something called negligence per se. Ordinarily, you’d have to prove the person who hurt you acted less carefully than a reasonable person would have. But when someone breaks a safety law and that causes an injury, a court can treat the broken law as negligence without that argument. Pedestrian signal rules are safety laws, and they bind people on foot as well as drivers.
What Does OCGA 40-6-22 Say?
Here’s the whole statute:
O.C.G.A. 40-6-22Whenever special pedestrian-control signals exhibiting the words WALK or DON'T WALK or symbols so directing a pedestrian are in place, such signals shall indicate as follows:
(1) Word or symbol message WALK. Pedestrians facing such signal may proceed across the roadway in the direction of the signal. Every driver of a vehicle shall stop and remain stopped for such pedestrians; and
(2) Flashing or steady DON'T WALK. No pedestrian shall start to cross the roadway in the direction of such signal, but any pedestrian who has partially completed his crossing on the WALK signal shall proceed to sidewalk or safety island while the DON'T WALK signal is showing.
Which Signals Does the Law Cover?
O.C.G.A. 40-6-22Whenever special pedestrian-control signals exhibiting the words WALK or DON'T WALK or symbols so directing a pedestrian are in place...
This statute only applies where there’s a signal aimed at people on foot. Older signals spell out WALK and DON’T WALK. Most of the ones you see now use symbols instead, the white walking person and the orange raised hand. The statute covers both.
A lot of newer signals also count down the seconds while the hand is flashing. The statute doesn’t mention countdowns, but the countdown runs during DON’T WALK, so the DON’T WALK rule still applies. The countdown is for people already in the street deciding how fast to walk.
What if there’s no pedestrian signal at all? Then you go by the regular traffic light. Georgia’s traffic light statute, O.C.G.A. 40-6-21, says what pedestrians can do on green, yellow, and red “unless otherwise directed by a pedestrian signal.” We walk through those traffic light rules in What Red, Yellow, and Green Traffic Signals Mean in Georgia.
What Does the WALK Signal Allow?
O.C.G.A. 40-6-22(1)(1) Word or symbol message WALK. Pedestrians facing such signal may proceed across the roadway in the direction of the signal.
When the walking person is lit, you can cross in the direction the signal is facing. Each signal controls the crosswalk in front of it. A WALK signal pointed across Peachtree doesn’t give you permission to cut diagonally across the intersection or cross the other street.
Even on WALK, Georgia law says pedestrians can’t suddenly step off the curb into the path of a car that’s too close to stop (O.C.G.A. 40-6-91(b)), and it requires every driver to use due care to avoid hitting a pedestrian (O.C.G.A. 40-6-93).
What Does a Driver Have to Do When the WALK Signal Is On?
O.C.G.A. 40-6-22(1)Every driver of a vehicle shall stop and remain stopped for such pedestrians...
When someone is crossing on WALK, a driver has to stop and stay stopped. The statute uses those words. It doesn’t say “yield” or “slow down.”
This matters most for turning drivers. A driver with a green light, or one turning right on red, is heading into the same crosswalk the WALK signal just opened. A green light doesn’t let that driver turn through people crossing on WALK. A separate statute, O.C.G.A. 40-6-91, covers crosswalks in general. It requires a driver to stop and stay stopped for a pedestrian on the driver’s half of the road, or within one lane of it, including the half the driver is turning onto. We cover that statute in our article on pedestrian right of way in crosswalks under OCGA 40-6-91.
Can You Start Crossing When the Hand Is Flashing?
O.C.G.A. 40-6-22(2)(2) Flashing or steady DON'T WALK. No pedestrian shall start to cross the roadway in the direction of such signal...
No. Once the hand is showing, flashing or solid, the statute says you can’t start across. Plenty of people treat the flashing hand as a signal to hurry, but the statute’s word is “start.” If you’re still on the curb when the hand comes on, you wait for the next WALK.
What If the Signal Changes While You’re Crossing?
O.C.G.A. 40-6-22(2)...but any pedestrian who has partially completed his crossing on the WALK signal shall proceed to sidewalk or safety island while the DON'T WALK signal is showing.
Keep going. If you left the curb on WALK and the hand starts flashing while you’re in the street, the statute tells you to continue to the sidewalk or to a safety island, which is the raised median in the middle of some wide roads. It doesn’t want you turning around or freezing in a lane.
That’s why the first question in a lot of these cases is what the signal showed when the pedestrian stepped off the curb. A pedestrian who started on WALK and was hit while finishing the crossing was following 40-6-22.
Does a Changing Signal Let a Driver Go?
No. Nothing in 40-6-22 lets a driver crowd or hit someone who is still in the crosswalk because the hand is flashing or the light has turned. The crosswalk and due care rules above still apply.
How Does 40-6-22 Affect an Injury Claim?
Under O.C.G.A. 51-1-6, a person who is hurt because someone else broke a legal duty can recover for that harm. That’s the statute Georgia courts rely on when they treat a traffic violation as negligence per se.
At a pedestrian signal it can cut both ways. A driver who doesn’t stop and stay stopped for someone crossing on WALK may have broken the law. So may a pedestrian who starts across on DON’T WALK. Either way, the violation still has to be what caused the wreck and the injuries.
Then Georgia’s comparative fault statute, O.C.G.A. 51-12-33, divides up the responsibility. An injured person’s recovery is reduced by their own percentage of fault, and someone who is 50 percent or more at fault can’t recover anything. The evidence that usually decides it is the signal timing for that intersection, traffic and business camera video, how fast the car was going and where it was headed, where the pedestrian was in the crosswalk, and what the witnesses saw.
What Damages Can You Recover If a Driver Didn’t Stop for You?
If you were hit while crossing lawfully, your damages fall into two groups: special damages and general damages.
Special Damages Are the Losses You Can Add Up
Hospital bills, surgery, physical therapy, future medical care, lost wages, and lost earning ability are all special damages. You’ll need records for each one, and you’ll need to show the wreck caused it. To learn more about how that’s proven, read our article on the causation element.
General Damages Are the Losses Without a Price Tag
A pedestrian has nothing between them and the car, so the injuries tend to be serious: broken bones, head injuries, long recoveries. A jury can put a dollar value on the pain and the lost months even though nobody hands you a bill for them.
What If Someone Was Killed?
When a wreck takes someone’s life, the family’s case is for wrongful death, not personal injury, and it has its own rules about who can bring the claim and what it covers. You can read more on our wrongful death page.
Why Do I Need a Lawyer?
A pedestrian case at a signal can turn on a few seconds of timing: what the signal showed when the person stepped off the curb, and what it showed when the car reached the crosswalk. The city’s signal timing records and nearby camera video can answer that. Business cameras often record over themselves within days or weeks, which is one reason to get a lawyer involved early.
How to Hire the Best Car Wreck Lawyers in Atlanta
Were you or a family member hit in a crosswalk? Call the Wetherington Law Firm at 404-888-4444 or use the contact form on this page for a free consultation. We take pedestrian cases on a contingency fee, which means there’s no fee up front.
The Wetherington Law Firm Believes a Case Can Make the Streets Safer
Some intersections make crossing harder than it should be, with a WALK phase too short for an older person or no median on a seven-lane road. If your case shows a problem like that, we’ll raise it with the people responsible for the intersection, because the next person crossing there deserves better.
This article explains Georgia law in general terms. It is not legal advice about your situation.