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Was he right to try to kill me?

The other day a van driver did his best to splatter me on the road... and I'm not quite sure who was in the right.

I was at the yellow arrow, about to cross the road dead ahead from one footpath to the other, on my way to the Post Office. That's the kind of exciting daily life I have.

The van had entered the roundabout at the red arrow, heading in my direction.

It's not clear from the picture, but there is a lot of foliage on the roundabout, and it was only when the van reached about the 3 o'clock position that I saw him. By this time I was already part way across the road, though not past the halfway point.

So the question is - did I have right of way or should I have got back off the road? As it was, I carried on and he clearly thought that I shouldn't be there as he showed no sign of slowing down and just missed me.

Clearly he wasn't correct in not slowing down, whoever had right of way, but what I'm not quite sure about is whether I had right of way once I had started across a piece of road with no traffic in sight? Since I can't be bothered to lay my hands on a copy of the Highway Code, I throw it open to your judgement and wisdom...
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Comments

  1. Pozza17 June 2015 at 17:24

    Rule 170 of highway code states: drivers, watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way.
    However, I'm not sure if this applies at a roundabout. Either way the van driver sounds like an asshole - this sort of thing happens so often - drivers unwilling to take their foot off the gas for just a second.

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  2. AE24 July 2015 at 17:43

    I was taught "Pedestrians have the right of way at junctions" a long time ago -- probably for passing my driving test. I had reason to check a little while ago that the principle still holds, but observation suggests that it is not part of the essential knowledge taught for passing the modern test.

    I cannot see any way in which this would not apply when traffic is turning off a roundabout unless there was a very specific override.

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