>Should we take this to mean that pedestrians may enter the flow of traffic willy nilly and drivers will always be found at fault in a collision? I assume not.

Pedestrians may enter the flow of traffic whenever they like, and the law will not punish them. If there is a collision, the driver may or may not be found at fault, it depends entirely on the circumstances.

>To me what I've been able to find sounds an awful lot like pedestrians are required to exercise due caution, and like basically less strictly worded versions of most US laws.

Pedestrians are encouraged to exercise due caution. They are not required to by law. You are confusing a common-sense recommendation with a legal obligation. Drivers should never assume pedestrians will behave as they "should". Pedestrians include children, the elderly, the blind, the deaf, drunk people, the mentally retarded, and so on: people who may not be able to sense, judge, or move in the normally expected way.

You will never be arrested for "reckless walking" in the way you might be arrested for reckless driving.

(You might counter with "pedestrians should not assume drivers will behave as they should" -- quite so! The distinction I am making is: if a pedestrian uses the road carelessly because he thinks drivers will always act properly, this is stupid, but not illegal. If a motorist uses the road carelessly because he assumes pedestrians will always act properly, this is both stupid and illegal.)

The specific thing you are quoting is the Highway Code, which is not law, but a series of guidelines.

>This one sounds an awful lot to me like cars have "right of way" when the amber light is flashing and a pedestrian has not yet entered the cross walk: "Pelican crossings. These are signal-controlled crossings where flashing amber follows the red ‘Stop’ light. You MUST stop when the red light shows. When the amber light is flashing, you MUST give way to any pedestrians on the crossing. If the amber light is flashing and there are no pedestrians on the crossing, you may proceed with caution."

You are incorrect. Cars do not have "the right of way" when the amber light is flashing, because as I said there is no "right of way" to be had, in that sense you describe. A pedestrian may legally step out into the street while the lights are green for cars. It is usually a terribly unwise thing to do, but idiocy is not against the law. Sometimes it's safe, such as when there's a traffic jam. I saw many people doing it this morning during rush hour -- nothing bad happened to them because the risk was objectively low, and they would have nothing to fear from any policeman who happened to see it, because their actions were not against the law.

For cars it is different: cars must stop when the light is red for them. That is a legal requirement and there can be fines or other consequences for breaking it.

>And yet, the UK is littered with pedestrian crossings. As near as I can tell you have an entire bestiary of different crossing types with different rules and regulations for each. Seems like they should be unnecessary if pedestrians have absolute priority over all other traffic right?

You misunderstand. I never said there was no danger -- of course there is danger! Crossings are a necessary evil in many places. As a matter of common sense, they should be used. But as a matter of law, pedestrians are under no obligation to use them. The police cannot fine you for not using them.

>So that sounds like you absolutely can be compelled by law to use a crossing where one is nearby.

This is only on A-roads, and only under specific circumstances, which local authorities must opt into. It is not a blanket ban on crossing the road, like the "jaywalking" concept is. I have hardly ever run into any such marked restrictions.

>Why? To me it sounds like a law reflecting reality. You could say a pedestrian has the right of way but when a pedestrian tries to occupy the space a bicycle is already or will be within the time that they are unable to safely stop, physics says the pedestrian will lose that fight.

This isn't about the laws of physics, it's about the laws of England. Yes, a pedestrian might end up in the hospital if he jumps out in front of me before I have time to brake. But he won't end up in jail. Why is this so hard to understand? You don't need to make something illegal for people to recognize it's a bad idea.

>It really feels like you have a misunderstanding of what "right of way" means here. This isn't some absolute authority where cyclists may mow down pedestrians in front of them, and cars may mow down cyclists in front of them, and busses may mow down cars and trucks may mow down busses. It's trying to resolve who needs to yield when a collision is likely to occur.

>It really feels like you have a misunderstanding of what "right of way" means here. This isn't some absolute authority where cyclists may mow down pedestrians in front of them, and cars may mow down cyclists in front of them, and busses may mow down cars and trucks may mow down busses. It's trying to resolve who needs to yield when a collision is likely to occur. As a general rule like I said, the person most able to prevent the collision in the first place is given lower right of way. A car already in a lane has right of way over a car trying to merge into the lane.

Priority rules for traffic is a different concept to the hierarchy of road users. The former is about on what the road users are doing, the latter is about what the road users are. We have the similar rules about which vehicles need to give way to others when it comes to merging and turning and so on. But a car will always be a car, no matter what lane it is in, and hence the driver has a greater degree of responsibility in circumstances where conflict with pedestrians is likely.