"You must yield where necessary to avoid striking pedestrian who are crossing the road. You must yield to pedestrians when you are entering or exiting a driveway, alley or parking lot."

Wouldn't it seem polite to have guidance suggesting that cars stop when people are in the crosswalk? Wisconsin residents are polite in most aspects of their life, but not when it comes to driving.

The quote above is all I can find about pedestrians in the Wisconsin Motorist's Handbook given out by the DMV. So basically it's legal to drive fast and not slow down for pedestrians in crosswalks (unless you're going to hit them). I guess this explains why I've had people swerve around me as I cross the sidewalk downtown near my work. They're only going 25 mph, there's a large clearly marked crosswalk with lots of people around but they decide to hit the accelerator and change lanes instead of politely stopping.

I've seen someone almost killed trying to cross the street at University avenue. Instead of a car slowing down, they laid on their horn and came within inches of the person. I've also seen an old lady run for her life across the street as cars approached. I wish there was something I could do about this.