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A Jaywalking Thread that is not about Ferguson
joshofalltrades
Class TraitorSmoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
Class TraitorSmoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
Since the Ferguson thread has been completely and totally hijacked by discussion of whether or not jaywalking laws are a sensible policy...
So look. Everybody jaywalks. You do it, I do it. Should it be illegal?
Contrary to popular belief, jaywalking laws do not exist everywhere. In the UK, the term "jaywalking" is not used and it is legal to cross roads anywhere except where explicitly prohibited. Guidelines for crossing the road safely are not enforced. Yet, the world spins on.
In other places, like the US, there are laws about when you can and can not cross the road legally. They exist for actual reasons; liability, safety and to prevent congestion of foot/car traffic by a lack of orderly rules governing when a pedestrian can and can not cross the street.
Personally I feel like we could do away with jaywalking laws because, like many other petty offenses, they are selectively enforced to target specific classes or races of people to detain them and fish for more serious crimes. Tangentially related is how Brown's jaywalking in Ferguson was responsible for the police confrontation and, ultimately, his untimely death at the hands of officer Wilson. Now let's not talk about Ferguson in here and keep from cross-contaminating threads.
Jaywalking! How do you feel about these laws?
So look. Everybody jaywalks. You do it, I do it. Should it be illegal?
Contrary to popular belief, jaywalking laws do not exist everywhere. In the UK, the term "jaywalking" is not used and it is legal to cross roads anywhere except where explicitly prohibited. Guidelines for crossing the road safely are not enforced. Yet, the world spins on.
In other places, like the US, there are laws about when you can and can not cross the road legally. They exist for actual reasons; liability, safety and to prevent congestion of foot/car traffic by a lack of orderly rules governing when a pedestrian can and can not cross the street.
Personally I feel like we could do away with jaywalking laws because, like many other petty offenses, they are selectively enforced to target specific classes or races of people to detain them and fish for more serious crimes. Tangentially related is how Brown's jaywalking in Ferguson was responsible for the police confrontation and, ultimately, his untimely death at the hands of officer Wilson. Now let's not talk about Ferguson in here and keep from cross-contaminating threads.
Jaywalking! How do you feel about these laws?
joshofalltrades on
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I remember when Gualiani proposed a crackdown on jaywalking in NYC and got completely laughed out of the room.
I do jaywalk and I never got in trouble for doing it even when a police officer nearby could clearly see what I was doing. I never even got a warning.
In Montréal, nearly every pedestrian jaywalks. It would be a total waste of time and money IMO to try to stop them, they're is more serious problems to tackle. Even in quiet suburbs like mine with little actual crime, I'd rather reduce the police force than occupy their time with petty things like jaywalking.
I think it's a useful law that's often misappropriated.
I think it's reasonable to fine pedestrians who dick around or cut corners regarding traffic, because they're putting themselves & other users of the road at risk.
I'm relatively sure that the laws themselves were a product of motor industry lobbying, but I can't remember where I read that. It was in the context of car-centric city design being increasingly viewed as old fashioned and contrary to the principle of trying to make places that are pleasant to live.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26073797
It mentions the USA, Singapore, and China as places with jaywalking laws. Wiki adds Poland, Serbia, Kosovo, and a few other countries that have an obligation to use a marked crossing if there's one nearby, but suggests these are "rarely enforced"
I've always assumed that jaywalking is illegal in Spain, solely due to Only Fools and Horses.
So I mean, if it came up on a ballot I'd vote to end them, but I'm not going to be wearing a sandwich sign outside Wal-Mart informing people what a serious issue this is, either.
It is. It's not called jaywalking though. It applies under a host of different rules depending on the jurisdiction that all apply to various scenarios.
The overall policy though is "Pedestrians yield to traffic in the road unless signs say otherwise". That's what all the laws amount to. And it's a sensible policy that should be on the books.
Alot of the complaints in this thread seem to be based around a concept of jaywalking that may not even exist. It certainly doesn't in Canada from what I've read.
The law is not "never walk in the street", it's "yield to traffic".
In America, it's "cross only at the intersections and only when you have a signal to do so, otherwise you will get a ticket if you are black. White people get warnings at most".
But I would much rather we deal with the institutionalized racism than get all up in arms over laws telling you to not be in the road even when you don't see a car coming.
Is it? Like, have you actually looked at the statutes? Cause I'm actually curious what they actually say.
This, for instance, is what I found for Toronto and seems perfectly reasonable: http://www.toronto.ca/311/knowledgebase/68/101000049368.html
It's not all uniform, but yeah, I've looked at the laws in Texas where I live.
Sec. 552.005. CROSSING AT POINT OTHER THAN CROSSWALK. (a) A pedestrian shall yield the right-of-way to a vehicle on the highway if crossing a roadway at a place:
(1) other than in a marked crosswalk or in an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection; or
(2) where a pedestrian tunnel or overhead pedestrian crossing has been provided.
(b) Between adjacent intersections at which traffic control signals are in operation, a pedestrian may cross only in a marked crosswalk.
(c) A pedestrian may cross a roadway intersection diagonally only if and in the manner authorized by a traffic control device.
Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 165, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1995.
EDIT:
And there's this, for a local ordinance (which are common):
Section 19-80 (b):
No pedestrian shall cross a roadway other than in a crosswalk in any business district.
That said driver tuition generally emphasises that pedestrians are not obliged to give way to motor vehicles or really to do anything in particular. The viewpoint is typically that pedestrians use the road by right and vehicles use it under licence (which isn't strictly true, but it's the general approach that the courts tend to take)
In terms of civil liability a driver will, in practice, nearly always be held liable for a collision involving a pedestrian. About the best it's possible to do in terms of defending a driver in that circumstance is argue contributory negligence.
A lot of European countries make that explicit as a matter of statute - drivers will be presumed to be at fault for a collision involving a pedestrian unless they can demonstrate otherwise, which tends to be a fairly high bar to clear.
What's the situation in the USA with high speed limit rural roads that have no pavement? Can you walk on them, cross them at will, etc?
The coordination problem is solved by right of way rules.
Why do people think pedestrians are suicidal? Even when I have right of way on a crosswalk I make sure the car is going to stop.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
Their definition of "unmarked crosswalk" seems to just be "a road".
I've seen enough people who won't walk fifty feet to use the actual pedestrian crosswalk and instead dart through rush hour traffic that should be ticketed...and there are also stretches of road without a crosswalk for a mile where someone really shouldn't be bothered for crossing in a safe manner.
So...tickets for assholes, no tickets for people who aren't assholes, better civil engineering all around.
You ever drive in downtown Baltimore?
It's a nightmare of people just not caring and walking blindly in to the street.
Frankly even if jaywalking specifically was removed, which I'd be fine with, it'd just be police ticketing black people for failing to yield when appropriate.
No, it isn't. If a road is longer than 10-15 feet, the only area that can be considered a crosswalk is a straight line between two street corners.
Besides, unmarked crosswalks are exceedingly rare except in very rural areas. Look at my local ordinance that I posted above. I am not going city-by-city to find out just how many places in Texas expressly forbid crossing anywhere but in designated crosswalks at road intersections like that but I would put money on it being the vast majority.
I've driven in CBD Durban and Gauteng. The legality of jaywalking would do nothing to change it, there's just too many people.
For people to be ticketed for failing to yield, there needs to be cars to yield to, which should reduce the instances it's used for bullshit reasons.
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
After living in Oakland, CA for a few years, I'm convinced that some pedestrians are suicidal.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Doesn't mean you won't be run over as a pedestrian, or that your car won't be run into by pedestrians.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
I'm pretty sure anyone who drives in any downtown area on a regular basis will rapidly come to the conclusion that a large percentage of motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians, all have some kind of death-wish and will do some pretty reckless shit on a regular basis.
If their own safety is the actual concern, then how about, uh, teaching people how to cross the road safely? Putting them in prison or fining them is like charging someone for going outside on a frosty day while their hair is still wet. (INSERT OBVIOUS COMPARISON TO NARCOTICS PROHIBITION).
But they're called correctional facilities!
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I jay walk everyday and have since I moved to urban areas. It just isn't important as an issue to anyone in NZ or the UK.
People largely cross at controlled intersections and when they don't it isn't that much of a disruption
In the middle of nowhere? Meh, right of way is sufficient. It was a long time ago, but I somewhat remember Oregon's laws being you must use a crosswalk if you're within 100ft of it, and you must cross as a right angle. Fair enough, I think.
It's pretty awful. Here at least, I would advocate vigorously enforced jalking laws for an extended period, with enforcement receding after incidents taper off and culture takes up the slack.
That seems reasonable.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Honestly, every time someone was saying how jaywalking lays were totally unneeded, I thought of your descriptions of chinese traffic.
... or Italian.
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Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
They already have too much power as it is.
Yeah.
California has a "reasonable distance" rule for tailgating. It's a popular pretext for stops.
The rules made under this section only prohibit jaywalking where:
that is, a pedestrian may 'jaywalk' if they can do so without vaulting a fence, outside of 50m of a designated pedestrian crossing. It is up to the government to put fences or signboards everywhere it wishes to prohibit crossing otherwise.