Mason County, WA Public Conduct: Jaywalking (2026)

Mason County Code Section 10.52.200, titled "Crossing at other than crosswalks," sets three separate duties. First, a pedestrian who crosses a roadway anywhere except a marked crosswalk or an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection must yield the right-of-way to every vehicle already on that roadway. Second, where the county has built a pedestrian tunnel or an overhead crossing, a pedestrian who instead crosses at street level must also yield to traffic. Third, between two intersections where signals are actively operating, pedestrians are barred from crossing anywhere but a marked crosswalk, closing off mid-block crossings along signalized stretches such as parts of the Belfair and Shelton urban growth areas.

The companion sections in the same chapter round out pedestrian duties: Section 10.52.205 requires every driver to exercise due care around pedestrians and sound a horn when needed, while Section 10.52.225 protects a blind pedestrian crossing with a white cane even outside a marked crosswalk. None of this is new local drafting: the whole chapter was adopted by Resolution 78 in 1970 as a direct transplant of the Washington State rules of the road, so the wording matches RCW 46.61.240 almost exactly. Because Mason County has no municipal court of its own for unincorporated-area traffic matters, citations under this section are handled through Mason County District Court, and the Mason County Sheriff's Office, not the Shelton Police Department, patrols and enforces it outside city limits.