California Vehicle Code 21950 requires drivers to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians crossing in any marked or unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, and it requires drivers to exercise due care for pedestrian safety even when the pedestrian is partly in the wrong. Pedestrians carry their own duties under the statute, but those duties don’t cancel the driver’s. A violation is an infraction that carries a fine, a point on your DMV record, and significant exposure in a civil lawsuit if someone is hurt.1California Legislative Information. California Code Vehicle Code 21950
The Driver’s Duty to Yield
Subsection (a) is the core rule. A driver approaching a crosswalk with a pedestrian in it must yield the right-of-way. Yielding means more than not hitting someone. It means slowing or stopping so the person can cross safely, without having to change their speed or direction to get out of your way.1California Legislative Information. California Code Vehicle Code 21950
Subsection (c) adds a separate obligation that trips up drivers who assume the rule is only about crosswalk right-of-way. Every driver approaching a pedestrian in any crosswalk must exercise “all due care” and reduce speed, or take any other action reasonably necessary, to protect the pedestrian. Subsection (d) drives the point home: if a pedestrian violates their own duties under this section, that does not relieve the driver of the duty to use due care.1California Legislative Information. California Code Vehicle Code 21950
Read together, those subsections mean a driver cannot escape responsibility for hitting someone by arguing the pedestrian shouldn’t have been there. The pedestrian’s mistake is a fact in the case; it is not a defense to the driver’s own carelessness.
What Counts as a Crosswalk
CVC 21950 applies to both marked and unmarked crosswalks. The marked ones are the obvious ones: white-striped rectangles or other painted markings identifying a pedestrian crossing.2California Legislative Information. California Code Vehicle Code 275
The unmarked ones are what catch drivers off guard. Under CVC 275, an unmarked crosswalk exists at virtually every intersection where two roads meet at roughly right angles, formed by extending the sidewalk or curb lines across the street. The exceptions are alley openings and intersections where local authorities have posted signs prohibiting crossing.2California Legislative Information. California Code Vehicle Code 275
An intersection with no paint on the pavement still has a legal crosswalk, and the yield duty is the same as at a striped one. If you’re turning at a corner and someone steps off the curb, you owe them the right-of-way whether or not lines are drawn.
Pedestrian Duties Inside the Crosswalk
Subsection (b) puts two obligations on pedestrians. You can’t suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle so close it constitutes an immediate hazard. And once you’re crossing, you can’t unnecessarily stop or delay in a way that holds up traffic.1California Legislative Information. California Code Vehicle Code 21950
Darting into the street from between parked cars is the classic example of the first. The second protects the flow of traffic against a pedestrian who has entered the crosswalk but stopped to do something unrelated to crossing. Neither duty erases the driver’s own duty of due care under subsections (c) and (d).
Penalties for Failing to Yield
Failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk is a traffic infraction. The base fine under the Vehicle Code for a first-offense infraction is up to $100.3California Legislative Information. California Code VEH 42001 California then adds a stack of penalty assessments, surcharges, and court fees on top of the base fine, including state and county assessments, a 20% criminal surcharge, a court security fee, a conviction assessment, and an emergency medical transportation fee.4Sacramento County Superior Court. How Fines Are Calculated The total commonly reported for a CVC 21950 violation is around $238.
A conviction also puts one point on your DMV driving record. Under CVC 12810, most safe-operation violations that aren’t specifically designated two-point offenses count for one point.5California Legislative Information. California Code Vehicle Code 12810 Points accumulate. Reach four in 12 months, six in 24, or eight in 36, and the DMV presumes you’re a negligent operator, which triggers a one-year probation with a six-month license suspension.6California DMV. Negligent Operator Actions For a driver already carrying points, a single failure-to-yield can be the one that tips the count.
Civil Liability When a Pedestrian Is Hurt
The bigger consequence of a CVC 21950 violation usually isn’t the ticket. It’s what the violation does to a civil injury case.
California courts apply negligence per se: when a driver violates a safety statute and the violation causes the kind of harm the statute was written to prevent, the violation itself establishes negligence. A driver cited for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk faces a presumption of negligence in the resulting lawsuit and has to work uphill to overcome it.
California also follows pure comparative negligence. An injured pedestrian can still recover even if they were partly at fault; their damages are reduced by their share of the blame. A pedestrian found 20% at fault recovers 80% of their damages. A pedestrian found 70% at fault still recovers 30%.
That’s where subsection (b) comes back in. If the pedestrian stepped off the curb into traffic too close to stop for, their percentage of fault climbs and their recovery shrinks. But the driver’s independent duty of due care under subsections (c) and (d) means fault typically lands on both sides in a crosswalk collision. Defense lawyers argue the pedestrian’s subsection (b) violation; plaintiff lawyers point to the driver’s subsection (c) and (d) duties. The apportionment depends on the specific facts.
Outside the Crosswalk, and Limits on Police Stops
CVC 21950 governs crosswalk situations. When a pedestrian crosses outside any marked or unmarked crosswalk, CVC 21954 flips the yield duty: the pedestrian must yield to vehicles close enough to be an immediate hazard. Even then, the driver still owes a duty of due care to any pedestrian on the roadway.7California Legislative Information. California Code Vehicle Code 21954 Between adjacent signal-controlled intersections, CVC 21955 requires pedestrians to cross at a crosswalk.8California Legislative Information. California Code VEH 21955
Subsection (e) of CVC 21950, added by the Freedom to Walk Act, restricts when police can stop a pedestrian for violating the section. An officer cannot make the stop unless a reasonably careful person would recognize an immediate danger of collision with a moving vehicle or human-powered device. The same restriction applies to CVC 21954 and 21955.1California Legislative Information. California Code Vehicle Code 21950 The pedestrian duties themselves remain on the books and still matter when fault is being apportioned in a civil case. What changed is the enforcement trigger.