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Quick background and more specifics: I live in PA. I walk in my neighborhood most days, and one street I cross is a somewhat major road, with a large boulevard (a.k.a. a median strip: ref., ref.) roughly 10 feet wide going down the middle. I’m always very careful when crossing and conscientious of drivers (speed limit is 25 mph). The place where I cross has no traffic lights or signals; just a crosswalk.

Yesterday, when I reached that road, there was no traffic on the close side when I got there, so I crossed half way and waited near to the middle of the width of the boulevard, standing in the crosswalk. There were a few cars coming, and the last one in line slowed down and rolled down their window as they approached. The woman driving leaned out her window and threw her arm up like I was doing something wrong and goes “Where’s your hat, dude?!”. I had no idea what she was talking about and just kind of gave her a confused look, at which point she slowed nearly to a stop in the middle of the lane and said, “Your hat? You’re supposed to wear a hat and use hand signals.” Then she sped off again while shaking her head like I was an idiot.

Are there laws regarding pedestrian safety I'm just unaware of? I’m sure there’s no law or anything stating that I have to wear a hat while out walking on sidewalks in a residential area, but I tried googling my city and state laws for anything related to hand signals for pedestrians and couldn’t find anything. (also, as far as I’m concerned, her slowing down on a major road to harass a pedestrian is way more dangerous than any law I might be ignorant of)

Jen
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user3242006
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2 Answers2

16

No Pennsylvania statute prescribes anything about hand signals or hats for pedestrians.

Barmar
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Tiger Guy
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15

Your legal question has been answered, but to make sense of the incident, if I could take a wild guess, you were wearing a brightly colored vest for safety, as I have seen many walkers and runners do when using public roads.

Perhaps the woman confused you for a flagger, who often stands in the middle of a road or on a median wearing a brightly colored vest and "hat" or construction helmet. They use standardized hand signals to direct traffic around a roadway obstruction.

Flagger crew image credit: summitflagging.com

e

MTA
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