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Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

virginiamercury.com

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Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#21

Post by umvi »

Jaywalking drives me crazy... sometimes I wish American culture was more German/Japanese in this area and Americans walked the extra 20 feet to the nearest crosswalk and waited for the light. A few times now I've had to tap my brakes for some guy dashing across the street to the island in the middle because he was too impatient to wait for the light to change. Sometimes it's a lady with a shopping cart.

These aren't slow residential roads either, but roads around commercial centers with speed limits around 45 MPH.

> In the Netherlands, for example, traffic engineers and urban planners have actually worked to lower the country’s curbs so as to encourage people to cross wherever they like.

This I don't understand at all unless it's in low/slow traffic areas.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#22

Post by hmottestad »

hk__2 wrote: post #14

This is what I get from France: > This site not available in your country I wonder what makes that website so special it can’t comply with GDPR.

Funny. Works fine in Norway, where GDPR also applies due to EEA. I guess their lawyers don't know that.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#24

Post by kerng »

AlexandrB wrote: post #8
nodesocket wrote: post #2

“encounters with the police, especially for people of color.” Huh? How is enforcing people not dart out into streets and hit by cars racist or biased?

Creating laws that almost everyone breaks and then enforcing them selectively is a great way to hide bias and racism. Edit: See also - loitering.

Unfortunately this is very correct.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#25

Post by vorpalhex »

erulabs wrote: post #11

Seeing as encounters with law enforcement are probably more deadly on average than jaywalking - I wholly support this change. Being poor in a car city is something most folks in the circles I run in now have never experienced or thought about. The documentary “Los Angeles Plays Itself” has a fantastic section about this.

> encounters with law enforcement are probably more deadly on average than jaywalking

36 pedestrians were killed last year in accidents in my city. We have one contested police shooting.

31 the year before that, two contested shootings.

At least biweekly there's an article in the local paper about someone hit while illegally crossing a highway, often at night. I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign, luckily they survived.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#26

Post by msla »

> Before the advent of the automobile, pedestrians in America were widely recognized as having the right of way in all situations.

OK, let's go back to this. You can argue right-of-way with a ton of fiberglass and steel going 35 mph. Tell us all how that works out for you. Placing blame doesn't mean anything when the laws of physics dictate which one's going to be the winner in any given scenario.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#27

Post by hmottestad »

hmottestad wrote: post #22
hk__2 wrote: post #14

This is what I get from France: > This site not available in your country I wonder what makes that website so special it can’t comply with GDPR.

Funny. Works fine in Norway, where GDPR also applies due to EEA. I guess their lawyers don't know that.

Just checked their privacy policy:

> By using Virginia Mercury, you consent to the collection and use, in accordance with this policy, of the information you provide to us.

This means they don't comply with GDPR.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#28

Post by pengaru »

AlexandrB wrote: post #8
nodesocket wrote: post #2

“encounters with the police, especially for people of color.” Huh? How is enforcing people not dart out into streets and hit by cars racist or biased?

Creating laws that almost everyone breaks and then enforcing them selectively is a great way to hide bias and racism. Edit: See also - loitering.

Yep, or hell even ridiculously low highway speed limits in some states, where everyone goes 10+ over.

But I think it's also just ensuring a ready and plentiful supply of fines for fundraising.

Re: Jaywalking decriminalization, 100 years after the auto industry made it a crime

#29

Post by LordDragonfang »

jimbob45 wrote: post #12
rafram wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a minor crime which people of color tend to be disproportionately cited for.

Isn’t the real causation here that they’re lower class? I would imagine high-class blacks don’t often get ticketed for jaywalking. Lower-class people tend to walk more for reasons related to expensive car maintenance. Are blacks more often lower-class? Sure, but that’s a different issue entirely.

While that's interesting conjecture, it doesn't bear out in reality in this case. From an article linked elsewhere in this chain[1]:

>From Jan. 1 to March 31, the NYPD wrote 80 tickets for illegal crossing — less than one a day in a city of more than eight million people — and only one went to a person identified in police logs as “white.”

So unless you think the "lower class" is 98% people of color, it's clear that the bias here is race-based, not inherent in the population.

[1] https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2020/05/07/nypds-racial-bias-in-...

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