Almost everyone struck in a crosswalk says the same thing afterwards: I had the right of way. That is usually true, and it is not the end of the question. Montana law gives the pedestrian the right of way and then immediately describes a way for the pedestrian to lose it, and the second half is where injury claims are actually won and lost.

What the Statute Says, Both Halves of It

MCA § 61-8-502 requires a driver to yield to a pedestrian crossing within a crosswalk. Most people know that part. The part that decides claims comes next in the same subsection: a pedestrian may not suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle that is so close that it is impossible for the operator to yield.

So the driver's duty is real, and it is not unlimited. Every adjuster handling one of these files is looking for a version of events in which you stepped out suddenly. That is not cynicism about insurers, it is simply the only argument the statute makes available to them, so it is the one they make.

The statute also covers pedestrian-actuated flashing beacons, the kind on Higgins and on several Missoula school routes, and it was last amended in 2025, so older summaries of it on the internet may not match the current text.

A Crosswalk Does Not Have to Be Painted

This surprises people, and it changes cases. A crosswalk exists at an intersection where sidewalks meet the roadway whether or not anyone has painted lines there. Being hit at an unmarked intersection crossing is not the same as being hit mid-block, and a driver who tells the responding officer there was no crosswalk is describing paint, not law.

Mid-block is genuinely different, and crossing outside a crosswalk does shift the analysis. It still does not automatically end a claim, because the driver's own conduct, speed, and attention remain part of the picture.

The Argument Gets Built From Physical Evidence

Pedestrian cases are usually decided on a handful of physical facts, because there are rarely neutral witnesses and the two accounts of timing never match:

  • Where on the vehicle the damage is. Contact on the front centre suggests a different sequence from contact on the front corner or the side, and the difference speaks to who arrived where first.
  • How far you were thrown, which relates to speed in a way that memory does not.
  • Where your belongings landed, often the most reliable record of the point of impact.
  • Sight lines. Parked vehicles, a snowbank, a delivery van, or low winter sun at the wrong hour all bear on what the driver could actually see.
  • The signal or beacon timing, if there was one, which is sometimes recoverable from the city.

Most of this decays quickly. The vehicle gets repaired, the snowbank melts, the scene is swept, and the parked cars that blocked the view are gone within the hour. This is the practical reason to get someone looking at it early rather than after the insurer has formed its view.

Being Partly at Fault Is Not the Same as Losing

Montana uses modified comparative negligence under MCA § 27-1-702. If you are found 50% or less at fault you still recover, with the award reduced by your share. Above 50% you recover nothing. We cover how that percentage actually gets set in a separate piece on comparative negligence, and the short version is that nobody calculates it from a formula. It is negotiated or decided.

That cliff is why an adjuster's early suggestion that you were mostly at fault deserves scrutiny rather than acceptance. A great many viable claims are abandoned because somebody was told, persuasively and early, that the accident was their own fault.

If You Were the One Hit

Get medical attention even if you are walking and talking, and read why gaps in treatment hurt a claim before you decide to tough it out. Photograph the scene and the vehicle if you can, or ask someone to. Do not give the other side's insurer a recorded statement about timing before you have advice, because timing is the entire case.

Our pedestrian accident page explains how we handle these, and our personal injury page covers the wider practice. We work with people across Missoula and Western Montana.