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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

‘Jaywalkers’ is such an offensive concept. ‘People trying to cross a road.’ Someone told me you can actually be ticketed for crossing a road in the US? In the UK it is always the fault of the car driver if they hit a pedestrian as pedestrians are more vulnerable (code rule 204, but doesn’t apply to motorways.)

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Those things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Yes in the US you can be ticketed for jaywalking, but at least in my experience it's more used on busy highways, where you are also endangering drivers who may have to swerve to avoid you. At least within cities I haven't seen it used when crossing a small street when no cars are coming, but it may be different in different places.

Not sure about drivers being at fault, but fault in an accident is a weird concept anyway. For the most part, if you get hit by a car the driver isn't going to suffer serious consequences (they probably won't be convicted of manslaughter, for instance).

But, this whole car centered system we have is pretty screwed up there's no denying that. Something like 50,000 people die in car accidents every year in the US and it's just business as usual.

Jaywalking is one of many things cop can arrest people for if they want to harass them.

Also prominent in college towns. You can increase your chances of getting a ticket if you jaywalk while close “enough” to an actually crosswalk.

Illegal in Australia too, and they absolutely will fine for you for it. Not only that, but they do "safety blitzes" where they stick cops near major pedestrian areas and just hand out tickets all day to people who cross on the pedestrian red, or cross more than 'x' metres from the crossing, whether there's cars coming or not.

Meanwhile red lights seem to be option for cars, and i've (very regularly) seen cars blow through proper red lights (not late-orange) right in front of cops who do absolutely nothing about it. Wife and kid had to quite literally dodge a car while they were crossing on their pedestrian green, right next to a cop, and when she got his attention he just shrugged and ignore her.

My friend had to go to “pedestrian school” after being ticketed for jaywalking.

That’s amusing. Insane, but amusing.

Thanks for your comment. I didn't know that jaywalking doesn't exist as an offense in the UK. Goes to show how commercial interests can get something ingrained in society to the point where you actually think of it as "the natural state of being". Apparently jaywalking as a negative term was promoted by auto interests in the US in the early 20th century, according to Wikipedia.

I suspect that’s overstating it. If you cross against a red while traffic is coming, I doubt they just throw up their hands and wait.

The big difference is the ‘default state.’ The default state in the UK is that as a pedestrian you are completely entitled to stride out confidently into any road to cross. The default state in the US is that you shouldn’t be there. Both parties should apply common sense, but by default you are entitled to cross the road.

That’s overstating it too. In the US they don’t just spring on everyone who crosses the street without a crosswalk/green.

No, they don't ticket everyone who jaywalks, but they certainly can. The arbitrary nature of enforcement (there is plenty of evidence for racial disparities in jaywalking enforcement in some locales, easily Googleable) is in my mind a great argument for getting rid of jaywalking laws - they can still keep traffic obstruction laws.

I’d be very surprised if the “default state” is that pedestrians can be wherever they want. Can you cite the UK law that shows this? (I once came upon two guys duking it out in the street. I can’t believe their only crime would be fighting in the UK.)

In California (other states vary to varying degrees) there is a crosswalk at every intersection whether marked or not (as well as some marked crosswalks in other places). These are the only places a pedestrian may legally cross a road. Here cars must yield “right-of-way” to pedestrians, but pedestrians also have a “duty of care” for their own safety and others. Cars must yield but pedestrians can’t just step right out and damn the physics. On the road, pedestrians are confined to walking against traffic on the left side of the road if there is no sidewalk. Otherwise they should not be on the road. But, if they are on the road, drivers have a duty of care for their safety. Pedestrians can’t be there but if they are cars can’t just mow them down.

In practice, pedestrians generally don’t get tagged for jaywalking. (Walking in my neighborhood without jaywalking would be a death sentence because of blind corners. You have to cross the road often to be seen.) Where the law mostly comes into play is when pedestrians are struck by vehicles. A jaywalking pedestrian will likely be found legally responsible for the accident unless the driver was speeding or otherwise acted irresponsibly, in which case a percentage of responsibility will be assigned to each.

> Can you cite the UK law that shows this?

The point is, there isn’t a law otherwise. It isn’t illegal. Can you point at the law that says you may wear a sweater in the US? No, there’s just no law otherwise. It’s the default state.

> These are the only places a pedestrian may legally cross a road.

That’s crazy. Why restrict pedestrians like that?

> I once came upon two guys duking it out in the street. I can’t believe their only crime would be fighting in the UK.

Well I think you can be obstructing the highway, but crossing normally isn’t doing that.

> That’s crazy. Why restrict pedestrians like that?

Physics.

What do you think about walking onto railway lines whenever you please?

https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history

The incident was on a divided 6 lane roadway with high speed limits.

Perhaps they shouldn’t have built that kind of thing where someone would need to cross?

How do you define where someone "needs" to cross?

Anywhere where people live and work.

Perhaps they only need to cross to get to the store that only exists there because they built the six lane roadway.

>Someone told me you can actually be ticketed for crossing a road in the US?

Of course, not simply crossing but specifically crossing at inappropriate place.

I think the UK should also ticket the jaywalkers.

The idea is that by default everywhere is appropriate, because pedestrians are more vulnerable than cars.

Then they should cross only in the designated place.

But why? Why should the cars get the priority? Why do they get miles of designated place and the pedestrians only get 2m of it every now and again?

Well, there are plenty of designated place already.

Cars can't cross the road on a divided highway either, so it's fair. If the person in question was running along the road not across it, this wouldn't have happened.

Pedestrians always have the right of way and can be ticketed for failing to stop.

However, just because you have the right of way doesn't mean you can't be ticketed for not crossing in the designated areas.

I’ve lived in towns where it was legal unless otherwise considered dangerous

That seems like a stupid way of determining guilt.

Not guilt - but the presumption is that drivers should be able to stop, rather than that the person should not be trying to cross the road. People can cross roads wherever they please in the UK, except motorways. They should ensure it is safe, but they can cross.

The car is the guest in the pedestrian’s space.

Is it? The driver was the one who decided to make the situation dangerous. A walker on their own would find it impossible to harm someone by walking. If you are driving in a place where people are walking (Anywhere not a highway) you must be driving at a speed where you could stop very quickly (30-40km/h).

If you were driving at 30km/h it would be almost impossible to seriously hurt someone even if they stepped out in front of you.

In this case, however, it was a posted 56 km/h - 72 km/h zone on a 4 lane road. At that speed you can't react to a person that steps out in front of you. Particularly at night.

Regardless of speed, a pedestrian who "stepped out in front" of a car is pretty clearly the one with a better view and much more manuverable -- that's the action that made the situation dangerous. Not a car driving within the posted speed.

> At that speed you can't react to a person that steps out in front of you.

So why are you going that fast where there are pedestrians?

Because ALL road user (pedestrians and bikes included) have an unspoken understanding that they will not behave in ways that deviate too far from the norms.

We do not (yet) live in a zero trust society. Pedestrians do not wait for far off cross traffic to come to a complete stop before crossing and drivers do not assume any pedestrian is going to dart out without some sort of body language warning. This allows both groups to accomplish their goals faster than if they had to verify the other wasn't going to do something dumb. It mostly works out as long as at least one party holds up their side of the bargain.

Well ok, but that point of view leads to 4x more dead people per capita than our way of doing things. If that works for you, then good for you. That’s a big pile of dead bodies, but ok.

Are you suggesting we set the max speed limit everywhere to 30km/hr so that in the event a pedestrian chooses to jump in front of a car, the car has time to react? Or what exactly are you advocating?

How do you think the UK manages to do it? People drive more carefully because they know people could want to cross anywhere. Sometimes 40 or 60 works depending on the terrain and visibility and design of the road, but you need to know people can cross so you keep that in mind, instead of thinking ‘only a criminal would try to cross my path and if they do it's not my fault.’

Not being from the UK, I'm not sure of the exact details of the law over there, but from a quick read it appears that pedestrians don't have the right of way except at marked pedestrian crossings. And certainly on a 4 lane 70km/hr posted road they would be expected to exercise good judgement and not step out in front of a car that they could clearly see coming.

https://travel.stackexchange.com/a/123110 is the closest I could find from a UK native. You clearly can't just barrel through a pedestrian that has stepped into the roadway without trying to stop, but there's also no expectation that a car must drive slower than posted on the off chance that somebody jumps out. A car should try to stop if somebody steps in front, but a pedestrian also should be aware of their surroundings and shouldn't step in front.

Unless you can show a UK LAW reference that peds have right of way on a 4 lane road without a pedestrian crossing? Do you have local knowledge or are you just making assumptions about a foreign country?

I didn't use the term 'right of way' did I?

I also said everyone was expected to use common sense.

But, https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/road-users-requ... says

"The most vulnerable road users are pedestrians"

And

"children and older pedestrians who may not be able to judge your speed and could step into the road in front of you. At 40 mph (64 km/h) your vehicle will probably kill any pedestrians it hits. At 20 mph (32 km/h) there is only a 1 in 20 chance of the pedestrian being killed. So kill your speed"

There's no rule saying that a pedestrian should not cross a road, except for a motorway.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-pedes...

"find a safe place to cross and where there is space to reach the pavement on the other side. Where there is a crossing nearby, use it."

So if a crossing is safer use it, but they have every right to try to cross the road, using common sense. That's different to the US, where if you try to cross the road at all, outside of a crossing, you're a 'jaywalker'.

"That's different to the US, where if you try to cross the road at all, outside of a crossing, you're a 'jaywalker'."

This is incorrect. In the United States you can generally cross at any intersection if there is no marked crossing available. In low traffic areas, people often cross the road at will, after checking to see if any cars are coming. 'Jaywalking' is barely a crime and is only rarely enforced.

> 'Jaywalking' is barely a crime and is only rarely enforced.

...but it's there, ready to use against you in a headline when a car hits you and you're killed.

'Jaywalker killed' - your fault.

'Person trying to cross the street mown down by car' - different kettle of fish.

  except for a motorway

But this Tempe case was on a motorway (AZ equivalent).

Drivers don't have right of way either. Both are expected to take care, and expect hazards[1][2]. In the case of a junction, where a car has turned onto a road a pedestrian is crossing, and at marked crossings the pedestrian does have right of way. There is no such thing as jaywalking in the UK.

If a car hits a pedestrian the starting presumption is a) driver is at fault and b) avoiding action should have been taken.

[1] Pedestrians - general: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-for-pedes...

[2] Drivers (Rule 146): https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/general-rules-t...

There are many other parts of the Highway Code that reference pedestrians, in multiple contexts. The general tone is "expect the unexpected and to find a pedestrian, or child chasing their football, everywhere except motorways and restricted carriageways (e.g. some dual carriageways)".

[3] Right of way crossing at junctions https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/using-the-road-...

I don't think it's logically valid to take a statistical difference between two places and attribute it entirely to one policy or cultural difference. The US has twice the vehicles per-capita than does the UK which might also have quite a bit to do with this stat. I'm sure there are other confounders as well.

Of those that are driven over by a car speeding at 30km/h 10% die, at 50km/h 80% die. (Source: drivers education Sweden). Reducing your speed just a little helps a lot.

Also the fact that at 30km moving speed you will come to a total stop if you braked before impact

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