Originally Posted by zeytoun
Actually, pedestrians are usually part of the vehicle code. So it's just
one set of rules of the road.
(See for example CVC division 11 chapter 5
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/vc/tocd11c5.htm)
In that
one set of rules for the road are many rules that apply to smaller subsets of the groups.
I randomly picked one section out of chapter 5 to illustrate a point:
Pedestrians Outside Crosswalks
21954. (a) Every pedestrian upon a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway so near as to constitute an immediate hazard.
(b) The provisions of this section shall not relieve the driver of a vehicle from the duty to exercise due care for the safety of any pedestrian upon a roadway.
Note how although it applies to both drivers of vehicles and to pedestrians, it applies to them differently. Also note that it applies to bicyclists, without mentioning them because of 22100, exactly the same as it is applies to drivers of vehicles. This is typically of the laws that apply to pedestrians, which really define separate rules that belong to two different sets: those for drivers of vehicles and those for pedestrians.
The fact that the separate rules are often stated within the same secdtion of the vehicle code is an issue of how it's organized, and has nothing to do with what the rules actually are.