Sure they can. They can increase the likelihood you'll get in danger, by trying to avoid collision with them.
E.g. you drive on a road designed for relatively high speeds say 80-100 km/h. They decide to cross it, despite it not being a safe zone for crossing. You hit the pedals and swerve off the road injuring yourself (or you get rammed by a vehicle behind you).
Injury =/= death. If you swerve off the road, you have airbags. If a car behind you hits you, again, you have airbags. You have tons of metal shielding you from a collision, insurance that is supposed to take care of the situations that can't be blamed on you, and airbags and seat belts that are supposed to reduce the consequences of a collision.
Pedestrians have none of that. Where I come from, this (alongside first-aid skills) is the very first thing you learn on your way of getting a driver's license, before road signs and traffic rules are even mentioned.
That's why, in "normal" countries, it's always the driver that needs to be questioned by default, not the pedestrian. If the driver proves that he did all he could to avoid the accident, he faces no consequences. If not, he faces them.
This really isn't that complicated. It's okay for the pedestrian to not respect all the rules because he's not in the position in which he can put other people's lives in danger — only his own. Drivers are willingly putting themselves in a situation in which they can put other people's lives in danger, so the burden of proof is on them.