People v. Noland

SHAW, P. J.

The defendant appeals from a judgment convicting him of violating section 476 of the Vehicle Code. The part of that section here involved reads: “Whenever traffic is controlled by official traffic control signals exhibiting the words ‘Go/ ‘Caution/ or ‘Stop/ or exhibiting different colored lights successively, one at a time, or with arrows, the following colors only shall be used, and said terms and lights shall indicate and apply to drivers of vehicles and pedestrians as follows:

“ (a) Green alone or ‘Go.’

“1. Vehicular traffic facing the signal shall proceed straight through or may turn right or left or make a semicircular or U turn unless a sign at such place prohibits any such turn. But vehicular traffic, including vehicles turning right or left, shall yield the right of way to other vehicles and to pedestrians lawfully within the intersection or an adjacent crosswalk at the time such signal is exhibited.” More specifically the charge is that defendant violated the requirements of the last sentence just quoted by failing to yield the right of way to a pedestrian lawfully in an adjacent crosswalk.

The evidence for the prosecution shows that the defendant, driving west on Pico Street, stopped his car at Vermont Avenue to wait for the signal. When the signal light changed to green for him he started slowly and at the same time a pedestrian °a.stbound in the south crosswalk of Pico

*Supp. 821

Street left the curb and proceeded east across the intersection. Defendant made a left turn to

go

south on Vermont Avenue, and when his ear entered the crosswalk, the pedestrian, who was then 20 feet out in the street, looked up and stopped. Defendant’s car went through the crosswalk, missing the pedestrian by about a foot. Had the pedestrian continued walking, instead of stopping, he would have hit the side of defendant’s car. This evidence, taken alone, would support the conviction, under our views of the law, as hereinafter stated; but other evidence which presents a different picture, and an erroneous declaration of the trial court as to the law applicable to it, lead us to a reversal of the judgment.

The defendant and two passengers in his car agreed in testifying that defendant's car was already in the crosswalk when the pedestrian stepped off the curb, that the defendant then stopped his car, and that the pedestrian stopped about 1 foot from the curb and several feet from defendant’s car and motioned for the defendant to go on. The defendant then drove on past the pedestrian.