CASPER, Wyo. — A 19-year-old man was arrested by the Wyoming Highway Patrol last Saturday and charged with walking on the wrong side of Highway 20-26, pursuant to Wyoming Statute 31-5-605 (b).
“I didn’t know you weren’t allowed to walk on the right side of the road,” the man said in circuit court on Monday.
According to the statute, pedestrians on a highway or road with no sidewalks “shall, when practicable, walk only on the left side of the roadway or its shoulder facing traffic which may approach from the opposite direction as far as practicable from the edge of the roadway.”
Now it is known.
Before midnight on Saturday, May 20, a highway patrol trooper was informed that a man was standing on the bridge on the US 20/26 bypass to I-25, according to the trooper’s report.
Concerned for his welfare, the trooper responded to find a Natrona County Sheriff’s Office deputy already talking to the highway pedestrian.
The trooper said the man had dilated pupils and was zoned out while speaking to the deputy.
The trooper told the man he was in violation of law by walking on the right side of the highway, with the flow of traffic.
The man also refused to give the officers his name, saying he was concerned about a warrant for his arrest from Nebraska, which turned out to be non-extraditable.
The man pleaded guilty Monday to the pedestrian-related charge as well as interference for refusing to give his name. He received a one-year suspended sentence and unsupervised probation.
