Dear student who just moved to town for university. It appears you have come from a town that doesn't have crosswalks, so you don't know how to use them, so let me clue you in; You have the right of way in them, not 10 feet away from them when you are wearing black in the rain and walk right past it anyway.
I had a case where a man on a motorized wheelchair attempted to cross five lanes of traffic in the rain at night outside of a crosswalk. He crossed four of the five lanes, where vehicles had stopped for him, but in the last lane the motorist could not see him and killed him when she drove at the speed limit through her right-of-way.
There was a crosswalk forty feet away.
His estate sued the motorist, but the motorist won because it is illegal to cross such a road outside of a crosswalk. Furthermore, comparative negligence so substantially outweighed his argument that the motorist was granted summary judgment.
His estate was awarded zero damages.
Go to fucking crosswalks, people, for fuck's sake.
Where I used to live, to walk home from Metro I'd have to cross a 6 lane road, with a protected divide in the middle. Although there was a crosswalk, cars didn't have a light or a stop sign because it wasn't a full intersection. So, you wait until the lanes going west cleared, crossed to the center divide, and then wait until the lanes going east cleared before crossing.
SO MANY TIMES, someone trying to be "nice" would attempt to yield to me when I was standing in that protected center divide and would not understand when I refused to cross. But this is the reason why. In broad daylight, I couldn't see all three lanes and I knew for certain that the car that would come barreling down that third lane wouldn't be able to see me, and I like living, OK? Plus, it was a 30 second wait before traffic would either clear, or be at a standstill because of the light a block up and I could cross safely.