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

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

#121

Post by jimbob45 »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #29
jimbob45 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Right but we have no way of knowing how many walkers were blacks, how many black and white walkers actually jaywalked, and how many walkers of each race got let off on warnings.

It’s a nice talking point, I’ll grant you, but it won’t hold up to scrutiny on HN.

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

#122

Post by umvi »

chrisseaton wrote: post #111
umvi wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you think the default should be that it's your right of way in the car? a) Because it's the law, b) because there's a power dynamic. I can accidentally kill a pedestrian, a pedestrian can't accidentally kill me unless they throw a brick off an overpass. > Why should pedestrians keep out of your way and not cross your path? So that they take responsibility for their own safety. > Why don't we instead say you…

All your arguments are about protecting yourself and limiting your liability at the expense of the pedestrian and you just slowing down and taking more care. You even talk in the passive voice about people being struck by your car rather than you striking them with your car. That's a shit attitude.

Why am I being villainized for a) going the speed limit, b) complaining about a legitimate safety issue?

I would never intentionally strike a pedestrian in my vehicle, but a situation where a) I am driving the speed limit, b) a pedestrian jaywalking forces me to reflexively brake is not safe. So either the speed limit needs to be lowered, or pedestrians need to behave more safely. I would not need to reflexively brake if pedestrians waited their turn at a designated crosswalk.

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

#123

Post by woodruffw »

whydoyoucare wrote: post #80
maxmorlocke wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because jaywalking is very frequently used by police to target communities of color. As an example, 90% of the jaywalking citations given in NYC in 2019 were issued to people of color.

Is it possible that "people of color" account for 90% of the total people who jaywalked in NYC in 2019? Unless all data and all variables in the argument are made available for inspection, it is difficult to derive any meaningful conclusions.

> Is it possible that "people of color" account for 90% of the total people who jaywalked in NYC in 2019?

No.

I cannot say this in strong enough terms: every single person in NYC jaywalks.

Jaywalk ticketing is part of a longstanding policy of the NYPD, which is to use any occasion that presents itself to frisk people they deem "suspicious." The NYPD's definition of "suspicious," in turn, looks a lot like a colorwheel.

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

#124

Post by Leherenn »

jawns wrote: post #52

My first year of college, I was cited for jaywalking. I was walking across a barren street in our small college town on my way to class, and there was a town cop standing against a wall of a nearby building waiting for an easy catch. I had fully crossed the street and was walking to a nearby building when I heard someone yell "Hey" behind me. I contemplated not even turning around, because I wanted to get to class on…

Is jaywalking illegal all the time? Here it's only illegal if there's a crossing less than 50 m away.

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

#125

Post by rwhitman »

This is entirely about the same politics of safety we're seeing play out with the pandemic. If jaywalking was legal, the sacrifice is that we'd have to drive slower to watch for pedestrians.

As Americans our priority has been individual convenience, over collective safety of our neighbors. Its shifting slowly, but for the most part this is a battle we're grappling with as a society on multiple fronts right now.

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

#126

Post by tom_ »

umvi wrote: post #102
chrisseaton wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the default should be that it's your right of way in the car? Why should pedestrians keep out of your way and not cross your path? Why don't we instead say you should keep out of the pedestrians way and not cross their path? Maybe we should reset the expectation that cars own the streets, and make them a guest there, deferring to human beings in the first instance.

> Why do you think the default should be that it's your right of way in the car? a) Because it's the law, b) because there's a power dynamic. I can accidentally kill a pedestrian, a pedestrian can't accidentally kill me unless they throw a brick off an overpass. > Why should pedestrians keep out of your way and not cross your path? So that they take responsibility for their own safety. > Why don't we instead say you…

Why can't you take some responsibility for their safety? You're the one in a 200+ bhp murder machine, not them. If somebody can dart out into the path of your car, you should be asking yourself why you let yourself get into that situation.

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

#127

Post by nineplay »

chrisseaton wrote: post #111
umvi wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you think the default should be that it's your right of way in the car? a) Because it's the law, b) because there's a power dynamic. I can accidentally kill a pedestrian, a pedestrian can't accidentally kill me unless they throw a brick off an overpass. > Why should pedestrians keep out of your way and not cross your path? So that they take responsibility for their own safety. > Why don't we instead say you…

All your arguments are about protecting yourself and limiting your liability at the expense of the pedestrian and you just slowing down and taking more care. You even talk in the passive voice about people being struck by your car rather than you striking them with your car. That's a shit attitude.

I would have to drive very far below the speed limit on any street in my vicinity to be able to safely stop before hitting a jaywalker.

I can do that, of course, but I then become a road hazard. I find it hard to believe that the overall safety would increase as a result. I'm open to being otherwise convinced.

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

#128

Post by reportingsjr »

vorpalhex wrote: post #108
LordDragonfang wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign Which is an indication that jaywalking isn't the real problem here, it's inattentive drivers. How many of the 36 above were similar situations?

You're right, drivers should simply pause physics and magically stop their vehicle or wear nightvision goggles at all times. I was making a right turn on a 40mph road on a green light. There's a crosswalk there so I checked and the crosswalk was vacant, made the turn and proceeded to get up to speed on that road. And then immediately did a hard brake because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, cove…

For every instance a driver like you has with someone crossing like that, there are probably 100+ of someone walking and a driver nearly plowing over them.

I walk and bike around my town a lot, and I'm very cognizant of my surroundings.

I can not even count how many times I've had people driving see me start to go in to a crosswalk and just totally blast through it, back out of driveways where I was very visible on the driver's side and not even look (TWICE only getting attention in time to not get hit by bashing on the car), people driving at high speed in to parking lots inches away.

A month ago I was walking out of a nearby park on the only road in and out, that doesn't have a sidewalk for some idiotic reason, and I had some asshole try to sideswipe me and ended up clipping me with their mirror on purpose.

Think about this next time you bring up a single instance of someone walking in a dangerous way. The design of cities in the US and the contempt of many people driving is many, many times worse for pedestrians than the other way around.

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

#129

Post by klyrs »

vorpalhex wrote: post #25
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 crossin…

> I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign, luckily they survived.

These stats are not an apples-to-apples comparison. You need to compare injuries per incident: number of vehicle-caused pedestrian injuries per pedestrian crossing vs. number of police-caused injuries per police interaction.

I have seen countless pedestrians walking at their top speed, the moment the walk sign turns green, only to have it turn red before they've cleared the intersection. In many of those situations where I've been driving, I've been honked at for not carelessly running down the elderly or disabled. If every crossing was long enough to permit those folks to cross in time, cities would be deluged with complaints. How many pedestrians in your statistics were physically incapable of crossing in time?

I've been nearly run over by probably a dozen cars in my life, while I've had the right of way in a crossing (my favorite being the time that a cop was looking one way and turning the other, and my timely shout saved my legs). How many pedestrians in your statistics had the right of way?

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

#130

Post by metabagel »

vorpalhex wrote: post #108
LordDragonfang wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign Which is an indication that jaywalking isn't the real problem here, it's inattentive drivers. How many of the 36 above were similar situations?

You're right, drivers should simply pause physics and magically stop their vehicle or wear nightvision goggles at all times. I was making a right turn on a 40mph road on a green light. There's a crosswalk there so I checked and the crosswalk was vacant, made the turn and proceeded to get up to speed on that road. And then immediately did a hard brake because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, cove…

If you can't see around the bend, you're required to slow down so that there is sufficient room for you to stop, should there be a vehicle, pedestrian, or obstruction in the road.
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