Chap. 388.—An ACT to amend and re-enact Section 79 of the Motor Vehicle
Code of Virginia concerning the use of highways and streets by pedestrians and
permitting cities of more than sixty-five thousand population to adopt ordinances
regulating the use of certain highways and streets by pedestrians. {H 310]

Approved March 31, 1944

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That section seventy-nine of the Motor Vehicle Code of Virginia
be amended and re-enacted so as to read as follows:

Section 79. Pedestrians.—(a) When crossing highways or streets
within incorporated towns and cities, pedestrians shall not carelessly or
maliciously interfere with the orderly passage of vehicles. They shall
cross wherever possible only at intersections. Pedestrians crossing high-
ways or streets at intersections shall at all times have the right of way over
vehicles making turns into the highways or streets being crossed by the
pedestrians.

(b) At intersections where no traffic officer is on duty, pedestrians
shall have the right of way over vehicles.

(c) No pedestrian shall enter or cross an intersection regardless of
approaching traffic.

(d) The drivers of vehicles entering, crossing or turning at inter-
sections shall change their course, slow down, or come to a complete stop
if necessary to perinit pedestrians to safely and expeditiously cross such
intersections.

(e) Pedestrians shall cross highways or streets only at right angles.
They shall not step into that portion of a highway or street open to moving
vehicular traffic at any point between intersections where their presence
would be obscured from the vision of drivers of approaching vehicles by
a vehicle or other obstruction at the curb or side, except to board a street
car or passenger bus or to enter a safety zone, in which event they shall
-ross the highway or street only at right angles.

(f) When actually boarding or alighting from street cars or pas-
senger buses, pedestrians shall have the right of way over vehicles, but
shall not, in order to board or alight from street cars or passenger buses,
step into the highway or street sooner nor remain there longer than is
absolutely necessary so to do.

(g) Pedestrians shall not use the highways or streets other than
the sidewalks thereof, for travel, except when necessary to do so because
of the absence of sidewalks, reasonably suitable and passable for their use,
in which case they shall keep as near as reasonably possible to the extreme
left side or edge of the highways or streets.

(h) No person shall play on a highway or street other than upon the
sidewalks thereof, within a city or town or on any part of a highway out-
side the limits of a city or town designated by the motor vehicle com-
missioner exclusively for vehicular travel. No person shall use on a high-
way or street where play 1s prohibited roller skates, coasters or similar
vehicles or toys or other devices on wheels or runners, except bicycles,
tricycles and motorcycles. Local authorities of cities and towns may
designate areas on highways or streets where play is prohibited in which
persons may be permitted to use roller skates, coasters or similar vehicles
or toys or other devices on wheels or runners, and if such highways or
streets have two traffic lanes, such persons shall keep as near as reasonably
possible to the extreme left side or edge of the left hand traffic lane so
that they will be facing oncoming traffic at all times.

(1) Any persons convicted of violating any of the foregoing pro-
visions of this section shall be fined not less than two dollars nor more
than twenty-five dollars for each offense.

(j) The councils of cities containing more than sixty-five thousand
population may enact ordinances requiring pedestrians to obey signs and
signals erected on highways or streets therein for the direction and con-
trol of travel and traffic and to obey the orders of police officers engaged
in directing travel and traffic on such highways or streets, and may pro-
vide penalties for violating such ordinances by fines not exceeding five
dollars for each offense.

2. An emergency exists and this act shall be in force from its

passage.