Semantics of crosswalks

Recently, one of my friends mentioned a South Carolina rule by which a driver is responsible for a pedestrian if he waves that pedestrian across the street at a sidewalk. It seems that in South Carolina, drivers only have to yield to pedestrians who are *in* the crosswalk, not those waiting to use one. We attributed this to a peculiarity in South Carolina's traffic laws.

But today, I was helping Jud pick up his bike from campus (we walked to my apartment to get my car after class), and we noticed that our yield-for-pedestrias signs do, in fact, use "in crosswalks." This means that drivers don't actually have to stop and wait for me to cross the road! I've been aggravated all this time for nothing.

Silly prepositions.