You are coming to an intersection and have a green light. Pedestrians are crossing against the red. You should:
- Honk your horn.
- Speed up and pass in front of the pedestrians.
- Stop to let the pedestrians cross safely. ✓
- Drive close to the pedestrians and frighten them so they’ll think twice before crossing against a red light.
Answer: C. Stop to let the pedestrians cross safely.
Stop and let the pedestrians cross safely.
Why this is the answer
The manual's right-of-way section gives this kind of case: even if the signal turns green, you wait for a pedestrian already in the crosswalk. It also says drivers must take care to avoid hitting pedestrians, and the sharing-the-road section says pedestrians have the right of way at crosswalks and that you must yield to them, marked or unmarked. A green light does not let you drive into people who are already crossing, so the safe and required action is to stop and let them finish.
Why the other answers are wrong
- A. Honk your horn. — Honking does not meet the requirement to avoid pedestrians in the crosswalk, and the passages do not tell you to use the horn here.
- B. Speed up and pass in front of the pedestrians. — Speeding up conflicts with yielding to pedestrians and with taking care to avoid colliding with them.
- D. Drive close to the pedestrians and frighten them so they’ll think twice before crossing against a red light. — Driving close to frighten them is aggressive and goes against the instruction to avoid colliding with pedestrians and yield to them.
Remember it
Green means go only after the crosswalk is clear; a person already crossing gets your wait.