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Comment by Leherenn | Hacker News Reader

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

> small college town

That's the key phrase. Police in small towns of America have nothing better to do than setup ways of levying fines against outsiders so they can afford to upgrade their cruisers to the latest dodge chargers or outfit everyone with DOD hand-me-down weaponry.

Police in small towns are mostly fine and don't care about petty stuff because they have meth labs and whatnot to give them perspective. Police in wealthy suburbs, rural retirement small towns, tourist destinations and college towns are mostly not fine because they don't have much Real Crime(TM) to give them perspective.

Yeah right. Except that if you drive around the country enough you’ll find out that speed trap towns are usually small towns with nothing better to do. One pharmacy, a subway, 2 gas stations but 5 cruisers waiting for you to go over the silly 30mph limit imposed right after the crest of a bridge.

What is WITH that subway? Military bases, small towns, everywhere.

They're the franchise with the cheapest entry fee other than Chick-fil-a.

Speed traps aren’t because they have nothing better to do, it’s because it’s a non-trivial revenue stream for small towns that get a decent amount of through-traffic.

I've never seen it happen in a college town. See comment above. Usually the only place jaywalking in enforced is in the really big cities, especially Washington, DC.

I remember story about woman who got hit by speeding car along with her kids who got hurt badly or died. They charged her with endangering kids, but not the driver - crossing was over half mile away.

There was public outrcy about that.

It’s like interfering with a police investigation, it’s only illegal when the police decide to enforce it and want a reason to stop someone. If it’s a baren small street then I say it’s harassment. If it’s 3rd Avenue on a Tuesday, then maybe it’s for safety sake. The issue is that Jaywalking is applied too unevenly it’s laughable

related, in Seattle it's generally only illegal to not wear a bike helmet if you're homeless

https://crosscut.com/news/2020/12/nearly-half-seattles-helme...

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