Jaywalking legalized in New York City
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
As a general rule, I watch the cars and not the traffic lights. Mostly because many motorists (and NYC buses are the worst!) often don't pay attention to pedestrians, intersections or traffic lights. In fact, I'm more careful when walking through an intersection than in the middle of the street.
Believe it or not, most drivers do look out for pedestrians. Some better than others, but another set of eyeballs is invaluable, especially from the actual car that risks hitting you. Unfortunately, drivers do not expect people to cross in the middle of the street. And they never will, generally speaking. People are constantly milling around on the sidewalk, standing on curbs, doing all manner of crazy things, but not actually crossing. From a driver's perspective, a pedestrian about to cross the street typically looks indistinguishable from a pedestrian just doing the normal insane stuff pedestrians do. Then in a split second they go from normal pedestrian to crossing pedestrian, which is often much too late for a driver to respond, assuming they even noticed, unless it's at an expected crossing.
Yes, intersections feel dangerous and risky. But that's precisely why they're safer--pedestrians and drivers alike feel the anxiety, whereas when jaywalking both the pedestrian and car often don't sense any risk at all.
Essentially, build more rail/bus lanes/bike lanes and lower traffic speed. The problem isn't jaywalking and it never was.
if you have businesses and residences fronting onto opposite sides of a high speed road and the nearest legal crossing is a half mile away, that's not realistic. almost nobody will decide "hey let me add a whole mile of walking to my journey and a few minutes at a signal to cross safely."
Another major issue in this city, though, is visibility, what with all the tightly packed parallel parking, and streets (especially in the western half) just the perfectly wrong width for modern car A pillars. I would fully support shutting down dozens of streets that criss-cross the city to through traffic and dedicate them to biking and pedestrians. The bike lanes here (where people end up dying, regardless) piss me off to no end as much of time the city could have just given an entire street over to bikes a block away, rather than some of the most trafficked (by cars) thoroughfares, and everybody would be better off.
But another odd thing about SF is that pedestrians simply don't look. In every other major city I've lived or visited, in the US and around the world, the vast majority of pedestrians look before crossing a street. I've lived in SF for nearly 20 years and I can't get over how people just cross the streets--wide streets, busy streets, blind corners, etc--without a care in the world. It doesn't make it any less tragic, but... it's just so fscking bizarre. And I don't mean to excuse their deaths. Cars should be more careful, and they're definitely not--I'm wary of letting my children cross streets alone here, and I get honked regularly for not gunning it the moment a pedestrian crosses the center line when crossing. At the same time I find it very difficult to get too worked up when people blithely step in front of dump trucks (accident two weeks ago where even the city said there was absolutely nothing the city could have done to improve that intersection--the person just walked in front of the truck against every precaution).
I dream of this version of SF...
Given the size of the city, and amount of pedestrians and general walkability, I'm always amazed at how hard it is to get a pedestrian street here and there.... Even the peninsula is starting to get them in a way we seem to not be able to.
Also, drugs are a huge issue. We have a lot of pedestrian/car accidents, something like 70% of them involves controlled substance abuse from either the driver or pedestrian (and much of the time, its the pedestrian). Fent really is a big problem.
it also does not help that people in Seattle love a rolling California stop, which is not legal. Combine that with the baseline level of driver distraction and I have gotten almost hit by inattentive drivers way too much.
How far away was the legal crosswalk they could have used?
Most deaths happen on non-freeway arterial roads.
Most deaths do not note the presence of a sidewalk.
You talk about "alternative transit options" but the reality is that large parts of our cities have no sidewalks or crosswalks and it is killing people.
Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, Queens Boulevard in Queens, Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn and Hylan Boulevard on Staten Island all qualify for that designation[0], and lots of pedestrians are struck on these roads.
[0] N.B. We don't have 'freeways' in NYC. We have highways. There are also 'turnpikes' which are toll roads, but there aren't any of those within city limits.
It's because some people think jumping out of bush at 11pm wearing all black to cross right in front of a car is a good idea.
No, car drivers are responsible for pedestrian deaths. Please put the blame where in belongs.
This is simply false.
While most pedestrian deaths happen on open roadways (with a 3:1 ratio), that isn't the same thing as jay walking. Indeed, most of these fatalities involve people on the side of the road, usually in the dark.
Most pedestrian deaths happen at night. This is when it is easiest to see cars coming and avoid getting hit when crossing, (atleast if the cars have their lights on, which is frequently not the case).
Most pedestrian deaths happen in areas with no sidewalk. If there's no sidewalk, then there isn't going to be a safe option to cross.
https://www.ghsa.org/resources/news-releases/GHSA/Pedestrian...
Please don't make up and share facts because they support your worldview.
Plus you have literal a-holes who ignore traffic rules on purpose, which in place where I live (Switzerland) is maybe 80% of the cyclists. I've had few near miss (5cm max) as a pedestrian where cyclist with red light zoomed through thick crowd crossing without even slowing down. Bear in mind that >=30kmh hit of pedestrian can easily end up in fatality or permanent disability, when wife worked on urgency in biggest hospital around here, there were some dead pedestrians from such collisions.
It's the most international city in the US, and a disproportionate number of people who use the roads (taxis, delivery drivers, etc) grew up in places that have a traffic system very different that the US's. People in New York routinely run red lights, roll through crosswalks, ride in the shoulder - things that you might encounter in other countries, but are generally considered disrespectful/dangerous in the US. When so many drivers grew up driving in places that tolerate those behaviors (either in their home countries or as native New Yorkers), it creates a road culture that's very different than you'd expect in other parts of America.
In other cities, you can take a "trust but verify" approach to traffic. Drivers will respect traffic lights. Pedestrians will cross where they're meant to. People will (only) use the lanes painted on the road. You have to be alert in case an outlier does something differently, but we generally consider those people selfish exceptions.
The written rules and the practiced culture deviate immensely in New York. You can't just operate by the rules and expect that everyone else will too.
Yep. They "learned" in Connecticut, New Jersey and Long Island. And that's really scary.
As I mentioned, MTA bus drivers are the worst at this sort of thing. And they learned to drive (at least their buses) here in NYC.
Got anything else you want to blame on immigrants? It seems to be trending behavior. And more's the pity.
Also, getting a license in many countries is far more difficult than in the US. Where I'm from there aren't even learner permits. The only way to learn is to take lessons with a real instructor and the exam is really strict. Most people fail several times and spend thousands on getting it.
Not the only place. Many in the Washington DC area learned to drive elsewhere in the country.
https://dmv.ny.gov/driver-license/resources-for-non-us-citiz...
For example, an American driving licence can be exchanged for a Danish one if an American moves to Denmark, but a Mexican one cannot — they must take the full driving test.
https://international.kk.dk/live/transport-and-parking/drivi...
This doesn't indicate cities but shows by state and NY is very low compared to others. The worst thing is deaths are up in the country and the "light truck" seems to be a leading factor: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians24
Honestly-- this is why I smoke weed while I drive around NYC because if I didn't I would maul one of you traffic malthusians with a steel pipe.
It’s common enough that not crossing at a red light as a pedestrian (with no cars in sight) can be a tell that you’re potentially German :)
It's a bit strange though because the city doesn't even have that many cars and usually it's pretty safe to just look both ways.
It's also not a word in the German language at all, it's just "crossing the road". If you do it safely grate, if you don't not grate and if there are children nearby unsafe road crossing is really something you shouldn't do, especially it it's just because you are to lazy to walk a small bit more (I think crossing a road close by a pedestrian crossing while you aren't allowed to cross it is also the only way it is illegal outside of the case of "you action counting as endangering you or others" (like actually endangering not some absurd twisting of definitions)).
it pretty much appears only in the given phrase and hardly anyone uses it
but most importantly is that this phrase is about crossing the street on pedestrian crossing with traffic lights while they signal that you should wait a moment
which indeed is frowned on in Germany, depending on region quite a lot
but jaywalking also refers to you "just crossing the street" at a place where there is no pedestrian crossing. Which outside of Highways, limited-access roads and similar is quite normal.
and sure if there is a pedestrian crossing just a few meter down the road it is frowned on if you don't use it
Most people also don't know that you're not supposed to enter a crosswalk when the "DONT WALK/red person" is blinking, or the countdown timer is running. It is supposed to be treated like a yellow. Finish crossing the street, but do not enter the crosswalk. Though I suppose that stepping on the gas is how drivers treat a yellow also!
Lady in a Subaru was REALLY mad.
Like legally speaking there is no direct rule weather a car has to slow down or stop when someone is crossing the road. But if not doing so would endanger anyone the car has to do it anyway. And not doing so means you are pretty much fully liable for any damages this causes (assuming they had time to react etc.). Similar going on a street in a way which forces a car to strongly break isn't legal, as abrupt breaking comes with all kinds of dangers. For many situations especially small streets, low to mid traffic situations or situations with such high traffic that they jam this works perfectly fine without needing any "official" pedestrian crossings anywhere.
There still can be "unofficial" crossing, but they mainly exist to make space at the side of the street i.e. prevent parking cars blocking pedestrians from crossing. This matters especially for people with buggies, baggage or e.g. walkers. It also helps with visibility as small people like children are easy to overlook between parking cars. But they have no special legal handling and aren't loop holes or anything either. Just the normal way pedestrian crossing had been handled in most places before care traffic became big.
Through because "people aren't always careful", "crossing streets with multiple lanes is always a bit scary" and "sometimes traffic is just too high" and similar we have pedestrian crossings with traffic lights on nearly all road crossings involving multi lane streets or streets with 50km/h speed limit. Sometimes there are also traffic lights for things which are only pedestrian crossings, normally with a button you have to press for them to signal cars to stop.
Lastly there are properly marked pedestrian crossings (zebra strips, with appropriate sign) which are special in that cars have to stop if it looks like a pedestrian _maybe_ wants to cross the street. Not just if it would be dangerous to not do so. They are basically a cheaper version of a on demand traffic lights in situations where crossing the street without one can be hard to do safely while there is very little pedestrian traffic at the same time (e.g. on a street where for a long strap is no crossing with traffic lights but sometimes people have to cross in the middle but only a few times a day). Sometimes also used in situations where theoretically not specially handling is needed but due to idk. there being a primary school nearby it's done to add a bit of additional safety.
Germany seems very strict compared to the UK. You can be fined €10 in Germany for crossing when the red man is lit!
It's actually more like crossing in the middle instead of the corner, corners are automatically allowed even without special markings, which from other comments seems like it's either illegal or frowned upon in germany too, right?
for the rest basically if you do it "unsafely" especially if there are children it's also frowned on but otherwise very normal
some more conservative place might also frown on crossing close by a pedestrian crossing even if there is no red light at the crossing because "why are you so lazy to not walk that additional idk. 20m"
but I have yet to meet anyone who expects you to idk. walk down 100m to the next crossing and then 100m back or something like that
and all of this is for streets where there might be a traffic light, for most residential side streets people all the time cross wherever they like without giving it any thought
and in rural villages stuff like children playing on hardly used residential side streets is not really that rare (important not the "main" street passing through the village even if it's classified as a side street too.)
My assumption for the first 30+ years of my life, after watching US films was that it was something akin to walking while looking suspicious.
I find the differing conceptions of 'freedom' interesting. The US likes to think of itself as more free, but they can't even cross the road.
PS fyi, its 'great'. 'grate' sounds the same, but that means a thick metal grid, typically on the floor, or as to grate cheese.
I don't think I can take this claim for granted.
Anecdotally, when I go out there for business events the locals invariably suggest walking if the distance is ~1 mile or less. Do that there and back and you've hit 3 km walked on a single event.
In Manhattan at least (this is different elsewhere in NYC), as a general rule, 20 city blocks (going from 44th Street to 45th Street is one city block) is approximately one mile. Three Avenue blocks (e.g., from Fifth to Sixth Avenues, etc.) is also approximately one mile.
Walking ten blocks (~800 meters/~1/2 mile) to do just about anything is pretty normal, and walking further is pretty common too. If you note that's one-way, the round trip is ~1.6km and multiple jaunts daily aren't uncommon.
While street lengths are different in other boroughs, depending on where you live, you may well walk several miles every day. Or you may not. Folks who live in the North Bronx, Staten Island, Eastern Queens or South/Southeastern Brooklyn may well use motorized vehicles for many purposes, as the layouts are more similar to US suburbs than other places in NYC. YMMV (pun intended).
Edit: Fixed prose.
That said, as we both know, avenue blocks are of varying lengths. So depending on which avenue blocks we choose, we're probably both right and both wrong at the same time.
On days where I work from home and never leave my 950 sqft apartment, 2000ish steps is trivial to reach.
Then again, I’ve also seen the police ticket cyclists for speeding in the park.
Numerous Reddit threads for both topics.
But the fact is, jaywalking is against the law and when people don’t follow the rules, it just adds to the confusion which can cause more accidents. Just makes one wonder - what’s the point of it?
Usually it is only respected in high traffic roads, unless one wants to play frogger in real life.
And while there are technically fines, like 10 €, in practice the police has more usefull things to worry about and unless you get an officer having a bad day and someone has to pay for it, they won't care.
Second, as a veteran jaywalker, my rule of thumb is that if a car has to hit their breaks even a little, or otherwise alter their trajectory, you're doing it wrong. The goal should be smooth movement for all.
Third, just because someone else is jaywalking does not mean you should follow them! Always asses your own path because someone else may be timing it differently.
this is basically NYC law already, including pedestrian interactions
They do. This is why pedestrians jaywalk to begin with. Can't be bothered to have their time wasted by the law.
That's the way it works in Belgium: you wait sorry-out-of-luck for two minutes. Needless to say I've been raised (by myself) a jaywalker.. In neighboring Luxembourg you have the exact same traffic light, obviously built and sold by the very same company, looking identical except that the traffic light poles in Luxembourg have a button which pedestrian do press. And if there's no traffic, it becomes instantly green for the pedestrian. Actually even if there are cars, it'll very quickly turn green for pedestrians.
As a sidenote it is obviously safer to cross a street even though the signal is red for you while there are zero cars than to cross that same street when the signal is green for you and an incoming car is slowing down. I mean, I know, it's my right and the car should eventually stop. But I don't give a flying fuck about rights and fatality and rules if the car hits me.
I'll never stop jaywalking.
"Walking while black"
Recently saw a courtroom video where a black man was being charged with marijuana possession. The reason for the initial stop was jaywalking, but the cop didn't even ticket him for the jaywalking, just used it as a justification for performing a search.
Judge threw the case out. Scolded the cop for clearly just wanting a reason to search a black man, evidenced by the lack of a ticket for the jaywalking.
And of course, it's just wild to me that in some states, you can get thrown in jail for YEARS for simple possession of a single nugget of marijuana, while in Oregon, my grocery store receipts literally have ads for marijuana dispensaries on the back.
We see folks trying to take away the progress we made here. My county is trying to ban shroom companies. Very sad.
To be honest, I'm not sure what has actually been happening. People claim hardcore drug (ie, cocaine, meth, etc., NOT marijuana) use has gotten worse, but I don't know if it's actually backed up by statistics.
I've always believed that drug possession and use should not be illegal, but that rehab programs should be well-funded and free, and only distribution of drugs should be criminal. Addicts are victims that need help, while sellers are enablers.
I get the impression that the decriminalization happened without the adequate health services to help people. Alternatively, many addicts simply don't want help.
But I openly admit that these opinions are based on feelings, and I don't know if drug use and the associated problems increased.
It's easy to see how this could result in tragedy.
Germany, Japan, there is strict social compliance so it feels right anyway.
In Germany, crossing at a red light is very frowned upon. Many Germans even wait at a red pedestrian light in the middle of the night when there's zero traffic.
Crossing streets in places without pedestrian lights or designated crossings is very common, though, and I believe usually legal. (I certainly haven't heard of anybody being fined for it.)
There is quite a bit of historical evidence for this being really bad for society.
Freedom can understandably clash with progress.
Imagine how much economic progress the world would have made if the axis had won the second world war. I hope I have made the point.
They knew that as soon as the auto traffic got a green, it would go full bore and seemingly not stop for anyone or anything.
Quite different from my time in Boston where the optimal strategy is to ignore the walk signal and cross when there was a significant gap in traffic -- because it's likely that several cars would attempt to make a turn while the walk signal was on, blowing your chance to cross anyway.
That said, it's funny how much the culture of crossing illegally varies country to country and city to city. Having lived in a few northern cities and a few southern cities in the US, attitudes vary wildly. Where I currently live, people are very skittish about crosswalks in general and will usually wait for cars to go by, even if they have the right of way in the crossing. I would guess these behaviors are so culturally engrained that laws wouldn't make much of a difference.
But let's also not pretend that decriminalizing jaywalking ends this harassment. In 2023, California decriminalized jaywalking when it's not dangerous to cross. But police have still used jaywalking as a pretense for stopping (and assaulting) people. https://missionlocal.org/2024/09/sf-violent-jaywalking-incid...
Can you show me a single person that thinks/says this
>with only minimal requirements made of the driver.
could easily be changed by changing the requirements.
Commercial drivers are involved in collisions less frequently, and the more stringent licensing requirements (i.e. a law) are probably helping with that.
Drivers knowing that they will get away with mowing down a pedestrian so long as they say they didn't see them is also going to encourage dangerous driving.
Most importantly, laws that promote safer street designs make a massive difference in pedestrian fatalities.
All this to say that: laws do protect people from 2ton hunks of steel.
This is silly. Nobody thinks this. ”Mowing down a pedestrian”, even if one has a perfect legal defense, would be incredibly traumatic even for the driver. Traffic rules ought to be engineered with practicality (physics, the limits of human cognition and visual perception, etc.) paramount.
And where exactly do you live where only rich people drive cars?
That's what always gets me with these "won't you think of the poor pedestrian" arguments. I never see people arguing for their god given right to stand in front a moving locomotive. Aircraft? Only time pedestrians are allowed anywhere near the runways where they accelerate is to board the plane. But somehow with cars it's alright. Dude walks in front of a train and it's suicide. Same dude walks in front of a car and it's murder.
I think that principle of respect shows up a lot in infrastructure. When it seems like it was designed for people to enjoy using you get much better results than the quasi-penal school of public architecture which is sadly common.
Away (enough) from traffic lights, crossing streets is perfectly fine, but you have to watch the traffic. Walking on a street (i.e. not just crossing it) can be considered a "traffic hazard" (if there is any traffic to begin with) and may result in a fine as well. One thing clearly forbidden is crossing an Autobahn by foot which is why there are always bridges or tunnels to cross it, for pedestrians and other traffic alike.
You're doing it illegally in most places. If you imped the flow of traffic with the right of way, that's still an offense in most places. The article isn't clear if it's still a violation in NYC, but I bet it is.
Forth, how many more people will be run over in NYC now?
A more restrictive one is avoiding driver cognitive load and distraction. City driving can be exhausting. And attention budget allocated to one concern, is less available for that other thing that's about to unexpectedly bite.
> just because someone else is jaywalking does not mean you should follow them!
Another is attending to crossing as broadcast group communication. Manhattan pedestrians waiting at a light, will, quite reasonably, cue on the motion of others. Thus I might do a red-light crossing at a sprint-and-jog, solely to avoid misleading others with a "people are starting/walking across now" cue. Especially with tourists, and anyone with attention prioritized elsewhere.
Another is to threshold on benefit. Judgement errors will be made, so gate on the current case being worth that. There are people I can't comfortably walk with, because for low-payoff diagonizations, or avoiding a moment of red-light repose, they fountain social cognitive load with abandon. The pedestrian equivalent of car high-acceleration and speeding for negligible marginal progress.
Generalize it more:
"If anyone else has to go out of their way to alter their trajectory to avoid you you're doing it wrong."
This applies to just about every road interaction between any two users regardless of type.
Less traffic, fewer inputs/outputs to keep under observations.
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VC 21955. (a) Between adjacent intersections controlled by traffic control signal devices or by police officers, pedestrians shall not cross the roadway at any place except in a crosswalk.
(b) (1) A peace officer, as defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of Part 2 of the Penal Code, shall not stop a pedestrian for a violation of subdivision (a) unless a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of a collision with a moving vehicle or other device moving exclusively by human power.
(2) This subdivision does not relieve a pedestrian from the duty of using due care for their safety.
(3) This subdivision does not relieve a driver of a vehicle from the duty of exercising due care for the safety of any pedestrian within the roadway.
But -- in California -- it remains illegal to do so in sections of roadway that are betwixt two traffic lights, no matter how safe an convenient it is.
(We've got very similarly-worded restrictions here in Ohio, too, FWIW.)
Also, there's not that many adjacent controlled intersections. Driveways are intersections, too, and are rarely controlled.
How...detestable.
Does this mean diagonally? What's the distance to "adjacent"? One city block? Two? Does this mean that jaywalking is still practically illegal in most dense cities/downtown areas?
The lack of clarity is pretty frustrating with many of these laws. I understand the practical need for wiggle room, but this almost seems like a trap! My naive interpretation is that police will still have plenty of opportunity to use jaywalking in the ways that the law was trying to prevent, especially in densely populated areas.
I used to live on a street where crossing it legally meant a one mile trek, so it's appreciated, especially since I was warned once, but I now have no idea if it would be legal or not, since there was a light half mile in either direction.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
My lay interpretation is, I think, the same as yours: In order to avoid doing illegal things, one would have to walk a mile to cross the road in your example.
And as a lay jaywalker: I'm absolutely certain that I would never do that; I'd simply cross the road when when it was safe to do so. (I'd also like to hope that I would have the time, money, and opportunity to have a turn in front of a judge for any resulting citation because this kind of result is absolute horseshit.)
A solution sometimes seen in London is a “Pedestrian Scramble”, where pedestrians are explicitly given full (and even diagonal) access to a junction with all other traffic stopped.
You used to comply? Don't comply with dumb laws and rules -- it encourages them to pile on more.
Those stated goals seem, to me, to clash with the idea of now making it up to people's discretion to cross roads wherever and whenever they want, rather than at dedicated, marked, predictable, traffic crossings equipped with signal lights that tell cars and pedestrians who has the right of way.
I'm curious in X years if the data will or will not show more pedestrians got hit by cars following this change.
In Europe you see plenty of places that are pedestrian first and the car drivers are expected to act differently as a result. Something similar happens in Amsterdam where it is a cyclist first city. Cyclists expect right of way and cars are few and far between.
So long as you go about thinking of this in terms of car first as a de facto part of life you won't understand how good it could be with less cars.
There's also the balance of power that NYC is actually mostly pedestrian. Anything that empowers pedestrians and inhibits cars is a net win for freedom of movement.
I walk/run, drive, and cycle in NYC. In my view, the way NYC works in most intersections and roads is pretty close to maximally efficient. And it generally gets better over time, although it has occasionally gotten worse in the name of safety.
The things that make it that way include (1) mostly one-way roads, which makes jaywalking significantly easier and safer (2) mostly single-lane or dual-lane roads (3) well-tuned traffic lights with relatively brief cycles (4) relatively low speed limits that are brutally enforced with speed traps (5) an abundance of red light cameras.
The least safe parts of the city are those with more than 2 lanes of traffic, especially if it's bi-directional, and those with really poorly designed cycling infrastructure. My pet peeve roads are the ones that look like this:
| sidewalk | cycle lane | parking spots | road |
e.g. Grand St in Williamsburg, because this design makes jay-walking extremely dangerous. and it makes cyclists go faster than they otherwise-would, because of the (occasionally-enough-to-be-dangerous false) sense of being insulated from both pedestrians and cars.
The other major source of risks, again IME, are cyclists going counter-traffic on one-way roads, and people on electric-assisted bikes in general traveling >20mph.
At first I was concerned, but then I realized it's actually a lot safe. The motorbikes were cautious because there could be a pedestrian at any turn. And the pedestrians were cautious because there could be a motorbike at any moment.
Didn't see a single accident or even any near misses.
Growing up in the UK, which is car-centric but not as much as the US, jaywalking was an alien term and concept. I remember being confused by the concept when I first visited the US. In the UK there be many crossing with or without lights and regular traffic islands for pedestrians. You get used to crossing the road without signal controlled crossing. And yet the vehicle death rate in the UK is 4 times lower per 100,000 population than the US, 2 times lower per distance driven and the pedestrian death rate is 5 times lower.
But I love that way. I think the alternative is just fascism. The idea that pedestrians are illegal if they don’t use a crosswalk seems insane to me.
Those sorts of measures have been shown to have negative impact on people's behaviour.
If drivers think vulnerable road users like cyclists and pedestrians are segregated away, they'll drive at higher speeds.
Pedestrians may start to assume that it's always safe for them to walk in certain places without looking.
On the other hand, if you have a system in place where people know that traffic does mix, there will be a lot more caution from all road users.
It's technically illegal to jaywalk but not punishable unless you manage to cause a traffic accident, somehow. I like these pragmatic laws.
Has this been tested?
Obviously, there's a more complex issue with jaywalking where it is a crime that is trivially easy to enforce in a discriminatory manner, and it creates endless opportunities for pretextual searches once NY's clearly unconstitutional stop-and-frisk laws were overturned.
In Europe you also have differences with some countries where crosswalk lights are as a mandate from God and nobody will cross even at 2am deserted road. And then you have countries where the crosswalk lights are mere decorations.
She suddenly started screaming when I crossed the street while the pedestrian light was red. I didn't get what the problem was so I crossed back, to much drama.
She (or her boyfriend) later told me there was a long-running campaign during the 90s aiming to curb pedestrian death, that featured vivid TV spots showing kids die because they routinely saw adults jaywalking and imitated them.
So jaywalking = killing children.
Also German children of all ages are encouraged to say to jaywalkers "You're not a good example for the children.". It happened to me more than once.
Where onlooking kiddies seem implausible, I pretty much do the same thing. Far better to be an obvious chicken than dead right.
I felt terrible later when I realized I had set a dangerous example for all of the kids around.
https://www.psni.police.uk/sites/default/files/2023-01/00008...
https://www.trafficchoices.co.uk/traffic-schemes/refuge-isla...
As an American, I had to do the math on that -- which is really annoying.
If you want to provide us with something we can understand, it's furlongs per fortnight, not per minute. ;)
It's varies in different parts of Poland.
Lublin - double fine for crossing a street with an "island" between the lanes on red light
Warsaw - single fine, but ~99% chance of getting fined even if you don't see any cops around
Gdańsk - you can jaywalk in front of a precinct and unless you force drivers to honk, or act stupid in other way - no cop gives a flying fuck. Cities with tourism have cops acting on different rules.
There is a massive difference between "country culturally tends towards using designated crossing points" and "it's a criminal offense to not use them". I'm curious about which countries outside of the US, especially in Europe, that criminalize jaywalking.
It is punishable with a 4€ fixed fine. I don't know of any lesser punishable crime and it is rarely enforced in practice despite jaywalking being common. But it is still a crime.
I think that's mostly just certain parts of Germany.
This makes sense for freeways but in cities this should be flipped.
Which means the only legal place to cross a road is an intersection, which is significantly less safe for pedestrians.
Next time you're going for a walk, try to estimate what % of intersections or crossing points are protected (stop signs for all roads, traffic lights, or barriers). Similarly, when you're out driving try and see how much you slow down for each intersection (ie non-jaywalking crossing points) - this is not a judgement on driving style this is just about working out relative safety. Any unprotected intersection you go through without significantly slowing down (think dropping to parking lot speed) for is a location where crossing away from the intersection is safer.
Safety for pedestrians crossing a road is primarily from collision avoidance - as I said in another comment the amount of damage from a pedestrian vs vehicle collision high at even "low" car speeds.
If you are a certain distance away from a crosswalk, you are allowed to cross the road but must yield to oncoming cars.
It's really pretty simple and common-sense. Of course there are differences in local rules, but this is the way it usually works.
Also a good number of states prohibit right-on-red by default when the red light is in the shape of an arrow.
Thus, there are 50 different sets of these laws, plus DC. Any similarities between them may be nothing more than incidental.
> The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 required in §362(c)(5) that in order for a state to receive federal assistance in developing mandated conservation programs, they must permit right turns on red lights. All 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico have allowed right turns on red since 1980, except where prohibited by a sign or where right turns are controlled by dedicated traffic lights.
Can you explain more of which part of anything about WTF you're going on about?
[Please don't hold back. I hope you don't mind much, but sometimes I get off pretty spontaneously when other people go digging in my shit.]
> Any similarities between them may be nothing more than incidental.
Due to the 1970's fuel crisis, the Federal government flexed it's power and threatened to withhold money from states if they did not adopt Right Turn On Red (RTOR), thus it seems that the commonality between states with respect to RTOR might be more than incidental.
(Also, your original comment was easier to understand.)
It is exactly the opposite within the confines of New York City[0], where right on red is expressly prohibited, unless a sign says otherwise.
[0] https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/ssi09_rightonred....
I've been lightly hit a few times because of people like that.
I've also almost been hit by people ignoring the stop line and stopping abruptly in the crosswalk area immediately in front of me.
It's true in most city streets because even if cars drive faster outside of intersections, if we walk fast and have good visibility then it's not an issue.
There are very busy roundabouts with crosswalks right next to them. As a driver having to stop means being scared for your car's behind.
The safest way for a pedestrian to cross a road is a location where there is the greatest opportunity to avoid a collision at any speed. That means minimizing number of directions you need to watch for traffic, and maximizing the likelihood of being in the line of sight of drivers. That means you want to cross away from intersections.
Crossing between intersections means that as a pedestrian you only have to be concerned about traffic from two (or even just one) directions, and for oncoming traffic you will definitionally be in the direction the drivers are facing.
Crossing at intersections means as a pedestrian you are having to watch for traffic from more directions, including directly behind you, and traffic approaching the intersection has drivers who are necessarily going to be having to look at places other than directly in front of them in the case of traffic coming towards you on the street you are crossing, and traffic coming from the other streets may not by physically able to see you on the intersecting cross street (from their PoV) prior to actually reaching the intersection.
Hence crossing between intersections is safer because it reduces the likelihood of any collision, as it's easier for everyone involved to be aware of everyone else.
Speed of a pedestrian vs vehicle collision is much less of a safety factor than just not having the collision at all, because the difference in speed between "walk away" and "going to hospital" is very small - well within normal intersection speeds. At higher speeds of course the likelihood of going to the morgue skyrockets, but when considering the safety of "low speed" collisions it's important to consider a "low speed" collision that is minor for an adult is still easily able to kill a child, and the speed _required_ to kill is not that high as demonstrated by multiple pedestrian vs cyclist collisions that have killed people (I think generally older people or just really bad luck but its just important to recognize that the "serious damage to soft and squishy people" is way lower than people think).
Even if it was the driver's fault, I've seen multiple other accidents on this road. It's bad design to put a red light and bushes outside of an intersection. It's better to make the road thin (I'm not an expert though) with more crosswalks and make them bumpy as well. Some cities are full of aggressive citizens.
Why is it safer?
Between the intersections you only have two directions to worry about.
Am I wrong?
The problem here is not the norm, it's the exceptions. Some drivers don't slow down or pay attention. Those are the ones that cause all the risk. While normal drivers behave better at intersections, a pedestrian can't trust that every driver will do that.
In a mid block crossing, you don't have to rely on drivers behaving a certain way, so the predictability is increased and the overall result is safer.
Unfortunately that aggressive left turn ended abruptly when they hit a pedestrian crossing the street on that same green light. Thankfully the pedestrian seemed mostly shaken up, but I have to imagine there were long-term consequences of that.
There is one situation where some kind of enforcement is needed: crowds of people ignoring pedestrian signals, and flooding across crosswalks continuously. Then the traffic never gets a chance to move. Cars cannot safely crawl or nudge their way through the throng of people, who feel the protection of collective security.
One might argue that such large crowds are an indication that the road should be fully pedestrianized - perhaps by time-of-day, or only for specific shopping holidays (e.g. Black Friday, Xmas). The alternative for these peaks is often manual control of people and vehicles by a police/traffic/community officer, like a school crossing).
Perhaps there could be some critical crossings where there is a legally enforceable 'double-red' pedestrian signal.
They have to do this or people would just block all traffic all the time.
So this really is just to stop racial profiling. It's really not going to change much in the day to day goings on in NYC.
Of course you can’t run them down.
Having the right of way matters less than the ability to avoid an accident. If you plow into a pedestrian that you saw from three blocks away, you will absolutely be considered liable civilly since you had a clear chance to avoid a collision.
The general rule in almost every vehicle code is that having the right of way does not relieve you of the obligation to do everything reasonable to avoid collisions and injuries.
A little jaywalking is good, a lot of jaywalking renders the road unusable to cars. You don't have to be pro-car or anti-transit to recognize the inefficiency in having roads that are uselessly congested with erratic foot traffic.
I appreciate that this is one less crime the average person commits every day that a capricious enforcer can make a big deal of but the flip side is that this reduces the competitive advantage of not being law abiding to the point of absurdity and your own detriment.
> The Legal Aid Society called the legislation long overdue. The non-profit organization, which provides free legal representation to New Yorkers who cannot afford a lawyer, said police for decades have used the violation as a pretext to stop, question and frisk residents – especially those of color.
Low railings may be jumped by an agile adult, but they stop children, elderly, wheelchairs, pushchairs, suitcases or people with heavy shopping.
Divided highways may get (more) high fences in the central reservation to deter jaywalking - but of course the frustrated locals will eventually cut convenient holes.
As a lifelong New Yorker, I can tell you that arrest is never an option for any violation of the city's administrative code. Rather it's a fine.
And as you alluded to, black and brown people were the vast majority of those fined under the jaywalking regulation.
As a cis white guy, I didn't even know that jaywalking was 'illegal' in NYC until folks started talking about 'legalizing' it a few years ago.
As I mentioned, I've lived here pretty much all my life and have 'jaywalked' in front of police hundreds if not thousands of times and none have ever even looked at me funny.
So yes, this is a very good thing. Just one very, very small step on the road to 'a more perfect union', IMHO.
If they prevent you from walking away, you are arrested.
This isn't true. Car traffic must yield to pedestrians. Pedestrians don't always have the right of way, but you (hopefully obviously) can't just arbitrarily mow them down.
The only time this would matter is if you hit someone and it went to court. Thus in practice, you have to yield to pedestrians whenever you can reasonably do so. It's actually written into NY law (section 1146: "Due Care").
The same is true with pedestrians crossing where they have to yield to cars. It's their responsibility to check that no cars are passing before crossing. At a crosswalk, drivers will slow down if they see a pedestrian heading towards the crossing; they don't need to (and won't) at other places. Of course, if they see a pedestrian in the middle of the road, they are not allowed to hit them, just like they're not allowed to hit a car.
> At a crosswalk, drivers will slow down if they see a pedestrian heading towards the crossing; they don't need to (and won't) at other places.
They literally must. It's in the law I cited:
https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/vat/title-7/article-26...
You can go to jail if you don't take due care to avoid hitting a pedestrian, or even an animal. The right of way of the person being hit is irrelevant. But sure, if you, pedestrian, cause an accident due to your failure to respect right of way, you have also violated a traffic law, and you could be punished for it.
In practice, in a place like NYC, you're going to have to go to pretty extreme lengths for this to apply. Maybe if you dart into traffic maliciously, and a car swerves to avoid you and hits something? I dunno. It's hard to imagine a scenario.
That law requires them to exercise due care if a pedestrian is already on the road. This doesn't mean in any way that they have to slow down if they think the pedestrian might cross the road, as long as they are not endangering them. Even if the pedestrian is already on the road but far away, say on the first lane while the driver is on the third lane, the driver doesn't need to slow down.
Conversely, when a pedestrian is on a crosswalk and thus has right of way, the car needs to slow down even if the pedestrian is relatively far on a different lane.
> You can go to jail if you don't take due care to avoid hitting a pedestrian, or even an animal.
Please explain how this is different from a car that is blocking your way. Would you not be liable for jail if you intentionally hit a car idling on your lane just because it wasn't allowed to be there?
It means they can do whatever they want whenever they want wherever they want and everybody else on the road is obligated to accomodate them.
Why is it they get to disrupt traffic with total impunity and shift all the liability to the vehicles? That makes no sense whatsoever.
Excellent.
What?
https://chi.streetsblog.org/2022/06/08/pickups-suvs-are-driv....
Like it's a place where you (usually) stop and when you are stopped, pedestrians can go.
I don't see how jaywalking would be better than a dedicated place where pedestrians are expected to be. Thick a-frames or not.
The posted article mentioned accidents specifically at cross walks.
> The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that drivers of SUVs, pickups, vans, and minivans are “substantially more likely” than car drivers to hit pedestrians when making turns,
The reasoning though is mainly speculation. I've found that minivans offer exceptional visibility. So it could be as simple as people who buy SUVs, minivans, and pickups are just worse drivers than those in coupes and sedans.
My theory is that people just don't consider pedestrians when making left turns at intersections with cross walks. Instead, they focus on oncoming traffic and commit to a turn before looking at where they are going.
> “They are larger, heavier and higher up from the road than smaller cars and create blind spots that make it challenging for drivers to see vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists,”
I drive a car with enormous A pillars (coupe version of a convertible) and never have issues seeing the children playing in the street because of it. Likely because most 8 year olds would be at eye level with me.
A modern F150 however, an entire car could be obscured by the long, high hood of those.
How is that broken?
But as someone who lives in a country that has never had that law, I’m pretty sure it’s unnecessary.
Criminalizing the behavior was regulatory capture by Big Auto.
It being enforced by police from Connecticut who treat NYC’s minorities like a VR simulation was broken.
Strong recommendations and pointing out the loss in civil suits would have always been totally fine.
Come to think of it, laws that are most frequently broken by the general public are also probably deeply broken in their concept or the worldview they were based on.
For instance speeding laws, while making sense on paper, are completely inadequate for the thing they want to improve. Structural changes to either the roads or other infra, the cars, or more deterring power than a slap on the wrist are probably needed in the places where they're routinely broken by normal people.
But most broken seems like a stretch!
Trevor Noah titled a book Born a Crime in reference to his birth in South Africa, similar laws remained in force in many US states until 1967 which means a number of people walking about the US today have an existence that was a crime.
Why would they? They drive from their home to their job to the parking lot of the grocery store to the drive through pickup line at school for their kids.
I'm one of the more transit/pedestrian/bike people in the group I routinely hang out with and I haven't actually crossed the street as a pedestrian in a few days.
Tons of Americans never have to deal with crossing a street for their parking. They're not parking at some lot around the block and walking. It's all just a sea of pavement. City codes mandate each big box store has dozens of spots per shelf in the store. This on its face seems like a gross overstatement but looking at maps shows the truth of the seas of empty lots surrounding big box stores.
But many large cities don't have such city codes and have very limited parking as a result, even around large stores etc; especially not in downtown. Which, even if you don't live or work there, is still somewhere people sometimes have to go to for other reasons, from visiting a fancy restaurant to jury summons.
You could easily imagine a world where pedestrians have the right of way on the streets, and cars "request access to the road" in a similar way that pedestrians do. Actually, if this is not easy for you to imagine - it suggests enormous internal bias.
Pedestrians are more nimble than cars, so it kind of makes sense that cars have the right of way. As far as I know, large container ships have right of way over small vessels for the same reason.
That sounds lovely. I would live in that city.
And yet, I still disagree that pedestrians should be able to just enter the road willy-nilly. Crosswalks are there for safety because it sets the same expectations for everyone using the road, drivers included, thus creating order and flow that is generally reliable.
This is also the same problem I have with cyclists that think they should be allowed to ride against traffic, ignore stop signs, etc. By not moving with the expected flow, they endanger themselves and creat problems. When I am making a right hand turn, for example, and a cyclist has decided to ride against traffic, I am not compelled to look to my right as I am timing my turn because I am not expecting traffic to be there since a right turn has you crossing zero lanes of traffic and merging with on-coning that would be on your left.
I don't really like our car-centric roads in the US at all, but rules are in place for a reason.
Except you may have just passed a cyclist without leaving enough time to turn because you barely registered their presence and are now going to cut them off. Or you stopped at an intersection and they approached on the right because that is where they are supposed to stay by law and you didn't check your blind spot before you started. The first situation can happen with cars where you pass a slow moving car just before an intersection and immediately slow down to turn right, merging back into the lane and cutting off the car. If you have driven any amount of time at all, I am sure you have seen that annoying scenario. The second situation doesn't typically happen with cars because of how right turn lanes are constructed but can (unlawfully) occur when someone (typically a tourist) was in the straight going lane but realized they wanted or needed to turn right.
Dedicated bicycle lanes are meant to make it clear that you are indeed crossing traffic when you turn right because bicycles as slow moving traffic are intended to stay in that area as an exceptional case.
> and you didn't check your blind spot before you started.
No amount of legislation or changes in rules will protect from people who aren't paying attention. These changes don't have an impact immediately, but the only way to make them is to do them at one point or another. The people learning to drive in NY now will know that things are different, and in 10-15 years the behaviour will change.
My reference to cyclists goinh the wrong way takes place in the suburbs where I have lived most, and bikes are not exactly common. On a four lane highway with a speed limit of 55mph, multiple driveways, etc (Not Just Bikes calls them Stroads), a cyclist moving against traffic on a narrow shoulder is not expected. We can preach all day about "paying attention" but we have created a situation that demands high levels of attention from all, but cyclists feel they are exempt from the rules of traffic, making the situation worse in some immature act of defiance.
I like my bike. I ride it as often as possible and travel to places specifically because they have good biking infrastructure. But when I am in a place where therd is none, I ride with traffic, use my hand signals, and assume drivers cannot see me because they have a hundred other things they need to pay attention to, so I put effort into making myself visible and communicating intent.
It's not that hard.
The vast majority of drivers are continuously violating laws. On top of the continuous speeding violation (+10-15 is surely ok?) add the occasional roll through, failures to yield, failure to use a turn signal, speeding in school zones, passing without sufficient distance, running reds, double parking, etc and the police pretty much always can pull over any given automobile driver. This fact is well known: the default state of a driver is one of rule breaking.
Primary attribution fallacy is the contextualization of our own errors or rule violations while attributing those of strangers to character flaws (immature, defiant). You pass drivers doing all of the above things every day, but it is the cyclists you notice because they are different and the other drivers are surely doing the same as you. But you understand the context in which you violate laws or make mistakes.
It is not that hard to understand that everyone is human.
We can look at the data. Aactual cities where jaywalking isn't a crime; they do not set the speed limit at 10, and it all seems to work fine.
reedf1 wrote:
> You could easily imagine a world where pedestrians have the right of way on the streets, and cars "request access to the road" in a similar way that pedestrians do.
https://www.thewindscreenco.co.uk/help-advice/highway-code-2...
In NYC, the speed limit is 25 miles per hour. What's more, there are plans to reduce that to 20mph in a bunch of places.
Moral: Don't drive in NYC.
Using the right tools at the right place is part of it: cars are useful for some trips, less for others. Trying to solve every transportation problem with a unique solution was IMHO the original sin of this.
> Pedestrians are more nimble
Think kids going to school and elderlies. Having something that work for them requires either putting the burden on cars or removing cars from the picture. One costs a lot more than the other, and in the case you want to keep cars in cities the former is probably more attractive than the latter.
Wait, when are you driving faster than that in a city anyway? City roads here are mostly restricted to 30kph; travel times didn't significantly increase when this was imposed a while back.
Population density of Manhattan: 78,000 per square mile
(according to wikipedia on both)
In situations where there are a lot of people at the same time, like say a music festival or a sports game finishing, the police tend to manage the flow of people.
The City of Westminster has a day-time population of around 1 million people, and its area is around 8 sq miles; (doing casual searching).
One good way to avoid posting meaninglessly is to write meaningful sentences and explain your conclusions/inferences explicitly.
The Highway Code was recently updated (a few years ago) to make it more explicit that pedestrians crossing a side road junction should have priority over vehicles trying to turn into the side road. However, that's not necessarily followed by all drivers/cyclists etc.
Basically, drivers/cyclists are expected to make all efforts to avoid a collision and will be considered at fault unless it's a scenario where the pedestrian steps into the road without enough time for the driver/cyclist to react and avoid them.
Ambiguity will be the problem and it is solved by the rule of "not crossing at all". The lesser of 2 evils.
So, in the situation you describe, the solution is clear: the car has to slow down, and any police officer is supposed to notice that the car had to slow down and issue some citation to the pedestrian for not respecting the right of way. This is exactly how all traffic violations work: if some car is not yielding to you, you don't drive into them, you break to avoid the accident, and hope that the police sees this and issues a citation to the other driver.
If a bad rule is enacted and it kills 100 people per year more, will enforcement of the rule bring back those 100 people?
Rules should take into account the stupid things people will do and that in real life you won't get 100% compliance and enforcement won't get you to 100%. (many real life examples)
Yes. Enforcement of the rules, when done properly, does save lives. We have psychology studies that show that judgement/punishment needs to be swift/certain. When that is the case, human behavior is altered (sometimes permanently).
> and that in real life you won't get 100% compliance and enforcement
No one needs 100% compliance. We need something up near 98% or 99%, which is achievable.
Maybe the problem here is that a 2 ton SUV shouldn't be driven at 50mph when pedestrians are anywhere near. I always find it interesting how the ones advocating for the absolute freedom of owning and driving an SUV everywhere, to carry 70kg of human flesh, are usually also the ones asking for the restriction of the freedom of other users of the public space.
Bad rules = ambiguous rules and need for interpretation and that leads to many bad consequences.
Can you cite any specific examples of this being a problem anywhere in practice?
See a judge doing the right thing:
https://youtu.be/0PUgbArgXJA?si=9-8viC2MM-mIGEFe
We don't need a society that relies only on judges doing the right thing. We need better laws
When you're at an intersection, there's cars coming from many directions. In addition, from the crosswalks I've seen they don't even stop turning cars - the turning cars have to be looking and stop themselves.
Jaywalking is for selfish and impatient people who are bad at assessing risk.
Unless the street is completely empty, I guess.
What I think is crazy is all of the cities that just don't build sidewalks. I understand in certain rural areas, but yeah, many midwestern and southern cities are downright hostile to pedestrians.
In high school, a classmate tried to help me loosen up a bit, and he'd encourage our group to cross a busy stroad. "They'll stop! They'll stop for you!" he assured me. He was right...
I visited Catalonia awhile ago. My companion was a native there and helped me understand local customs. I was able to drive her car a little bit, LHD, although the roundabouts tended to bewilder me. On foot, we'd approach a busy street and she encouraged me to just cross. She showed me how to hold out a hand as a signal of my intent. Motorists would slow and yield. She was also right.
I heard that the walk signal buttons are called "beg buttons", as in "pedestrians beg to enter the street". I use them scrupulously. My justification is that a theoretical personal injury lawsuit is easier to litigate, if I can prove I was doing everything right.
I guess the way I see it is if you want your grave stone to read "Here lies AStonesThrow. He had the right of way!" then by all means, step out into traffic--they'll always stop for you.