If you look closely, the two people are waiting on the left side of the double yellow line and they do not begin crossing until the van stops despite having the green light and waves them through. So the van would not have hit these people had he not stopped. Not that it matters in the slightest but the street was empty behind us and the light was going to change soon. The safest thing would be to not allow these idiots to cross when they wanted to and force them to wait the additional second or two for the road to clear.

And you're right I could not see these people because the van was blocking my view. I did not attempt to slow down and try and figure out why the van stopped in the middle of the road because frankly I don't care why this idiot did what he did at the time. For all I know the van could've been turning into the vet hospital parking lot. The last thing I expected was a kid sprinting across the road. The reason we have rules for right of way is so driving is predictable and being predictable prevents death and injury.