
The Invention of Jaywalking - aarghh
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/04/invention-jaywalking/1837/
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TazeTSchnitzel
I'd never considered that idea before: Cars are now more important than
pedestrians. I've always had the opinion that pedestrians are above the
drivers, but then again, I don't live in America. Perhaps things differ there.

~~~
idleloops
I actually thought that Jaywalking was a joke - until I visited America. And
it was incredibly frustrating for someone from the UK to cross the roads. I
really loathed it.

In my mind the rule of the road is something like:

Pedestrians>Cyclists>Scooters>Motorbikes>Cars

I always give large mass vehicles and pedestrian carriers a wide berth.

Though a little common sense can go a long way! What's the problem crossing an
empty road! Or even speeding on an empty road?

It's the nanny state gone mad!

~~~
meddlepal
As an American it is funny you say that, when I visited France a few years
back I spent time in Nice and Paris and it definitely seemed like road
vehicles had the right of way. Pedestrians had to be smart about when crossing
(even if that is technically, and legally incorrect).

I don't own a car, and I live in a big Northeast US city so walking and public
transportation is my main mode of transit - jaywalking is a way of life in
Boston and NYC from experience and is probably similar in other NE cities.
However, I also think your order is totally wrong, in my mind it is the
opposite, the biggest, heaviest vehicles should have ROW especially at this
point in history when the average driver is distracted by so many things in
his vehicle. Response times are going to be suboptimal ... pedestrians needs
to be mindful of where they are traversing.

~~~
telent
> in my mind it is the opposite, the biggest, heaviest vehicles should have
> ROW especially at this point in history when the average driver is
> distracted by so many things in his vehicle. Response times are going to be
> suboptimal

This sounds to me like you're saying that the law should reward people for
wielding more power (bigger heavier vehicles) less responsibly (driving
distracted). A prudent pedestrian will and should be mindful of where he's
going and I don't think anyone with an instinct to self-preservation would say
otherwise, but shouldn't the law serve the interests of the vulnerable where
they conflict with the powerful?

~~~
evgen
The law recognizes reality; a motor vehicle, even one driven by a "perfect"
driver, has far fewer degrees of freedom in any given situation than a
pedestrian. The vehicle has momentum, limitations on the braking force that
can be applied to this momentum, limitations on the ability of the steering
system to change the direction that the vehicle mass is traveling in, and
sensory limitations for the driver that can decrease the reaction time
available. A pedestrian can not move as fast or as far in reaction to such a
situation, but they can change direction of travel far more quickly and have a
better ability to hear or see the oncoming vehicle.

~~~
telent
In a place and time where the motor lobby had not been so successful, the law
would probably recognize this reality by imposing strict limitations on the
use of machinery which, as you describe it, is so intrinsically dangerous.
Locomotive Acts, for example

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aleyan
The article suggests that drivers who kill people get off lightly in NYC and
that may be true. But what statistics say is that the City has been
progressively getting safer for pedestrians over the past decade.

There were 4.87 fatalities per 100,000 in NYC in 2001 and that number has
dropped to 2.8 per 100,000 for 2011.

Perhaps City officials found it more useful to make safety improvements and
changing the behavior of all drivers than to harshly punish drivers who made a
fatal mistake after the fact.

[http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4...](http://www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2011b%2Fpr460-11.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1)

~~~
burgerbrain
What I really don't understand is this obsession some people seem to have with
jailing people for a mistake that will already haunt them for the rest of
their lives.

~~~
T-hawk
Deterrence. Motivation for all the other drivers to pay attention and keep
control of their cars at all times. Legislation alone can't stop pedestrian
deaths, drivers must change their behavior.

~~~
burgerbrain
The desire to not go to jail is stronger than the desire to not kill someone?
I know when I slow down for pedestrains I'm thinking about not hitting people,
not not going to jail. Maybe I give others too much credit.

~~~
narkee
I don't know about other places, but on the highway in Michigan near
construction sites they sometimes have signs saying something like "If you
injure a worker, it's a $5000 fine and up to 25 years in jail".

Note the precedence of the $5000 fine before the 25 years of jail time.
Clearly the Michigan DOT thinks that fines and jail time are necessary
incentives to not kill or harm construction workers.

~~~
burgerbrain
I'm sure they think it, but does that make it so?

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sparknlaunch12
Interesting.

In the UK jaywalking is legal but there has been an increase in pedestrian
deaths. The assumed cause is "zombies" - pedestrians listening to music via
headphones not paying enough attention.

Same has happened to zombie cyclists.

Funny story is a friend who jay walked at 2am in a western European village.
Arrested and fined. Go figure?

~~~
rvkennedy
_Funny story is a friend who jay walked at 2am in a western European village._

It seems to be illegal in Germany at least. Individual liberty as a concept
has a stronger history in the UK than on the continent.

~~~
melling
I got stopped by a cop in Germany once. Everyone was waiting for the walk
light to appear. There was no traffic and one small lane to cross so I went;
we're talking 20ft(7m). Next thing I know the cop is asking for my passport.
He told me it was illegal but let me go after he ran my passport.

~~~
jordanb
I noticed getting the stink eye from people in Copenhagen while crossing empty
streets against the signals. It actually happened several times before I was
able to figure out what I was doing that was annoying them. :/

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drucken
Having been brought up in the UK, I think this is one of the situations where
we look at the rest of the world and think they are quite literally insane...

Why would you not have right of way on public roads? Everyone is a pedestrian
at the end of the day!

That said, I found California's drivers surprisingly like those at home.

What is also interesting about the UK is how the laws are balanced.

UK:

\- no concept of "jaywalking". Pedestrians have right of way.

\- but no vehicular manslaughter/homicide laws. They even removed an old law
called "reckless driving" due to being too hard to prove (it required proving
state of mind).

\- there are only specific offenses while using a vehicle "causing death by
dangerous driving", "causing death by careless driving while unfit through
alcohol/over prescribed limit" and a few others.

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jeza
I was in Vietnam recently. To the westerner their city streets look chaotic
and impossible to cross as most people get around by motorbike and there is
rarely a gap in traffic. Though it turns out if you cross the road slowly and
predictably, it's safer than crossing the street in any western cities. The
motorbikes will just go around you or if that's not possible they'll stop. You
have to be a little more careful of cars though.

Overall they seem to have little or no concept of anyone having right of way
on the road (technically that doesn't apply here either but people seem to
think they have right of way). Drivers just always have to be on alert.

~~~
AngryParsley
It's not safer. The US has 15 deaths per 100,000 vehicles per year. Vietnam
has over 1,200 deaths per 100,000 vehicles per year.

Even if you only look at road fatalities per capita, they still have 50% more
than the US.

See also: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-
re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-
related_death_rate)

~~~
Drbble
It's would help to get deaths per mile driven, too. Do Vietnamese cars drive
more or less than Americans? My auto sits in my garage all year, quite safely.

~~~
jeza
Could certainly be factor. Though the other thing is that all those vehicles
in Vietnam are motorbikes, so any accidents at speed are likely to be more
fatal. Though for the original topic then pedestrian fatality stats would be
useful as well.

In any case I'd personally rather live in a city that is well served by public
transport rather than lots of people riding around on motorbikes or driving
cars.

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yxhuvud
"The responsibility for crashes always lay with the driver."

This is still the case here in Sweden.

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sparknlaunch12
check out this guy who tried to drive his car into the Paris metro....
Apparently there was a sign that said"parking".

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17829438>

Some compare cars to guns. This is in terms of danger to life.

some research suggests car accidents should be treated like an illness or
disease.

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Swizec
Over here in Europe, or possibly only Slovenia, we have a similar thing going
on. If the driver does something stupid and plows into a pedestrian - that's
manslaughter.

If an accident happens and they end up on the sidewalk ... well then it's not
really anybody's fault. It was an accident.

I'm not sure why you would really want to press criminal charges against
somebody who, following a difficult situation on the road, ended up
unfortunately damaging someone.

However, if the person is on a crosswalk. Then it's the driver should be
charged at least with manslaughter ... unless they're rear-ended or there's
some other circumstance out of their control that made them unable to stop.

~~~
maratd
> I'm not sure why you would really want to press criminal charges against
> somebody who, following a difficult situation on the road, ended up
> unfortunately damaging someone.

I've been driving in New York City since I was 16. I'm 31 now. I've been in
_many_ difficult situations, even a major collision, but I've never found the
need to plow into the sidewalk.

There are people out there who are _cowards_. By that, I mean they would
rather risk harm to others than to themselves. When you are about to collide
with another vehicle on the road, you do _not_ swerve into the sidewalk. No.
You take your chances with the collision.

People who endanger others for the sake of their own skin are trash and should
be prosecuted. You use your driving expertise to stay on the road and if you
do not have the skill-set to do that, you shouldn't be driving.

~~~
ArtB
> You use your driving expertise to stay on the road and if you do not have
> the skill-set to do that, you shouldn't be driving.

Unfortunately, in most many places in North America you cannot function in
society without a vehicle thus even if you know you shouldn't be drive the
penalty is so great that almost all keep on driving. If there were reasonable
alternatives like mass transportation then we could reasonably expect thus
unqualified to use them, but in suburbia mass transit does not work.

To me this is as rediculous campaigns against drunk driving that don't push
for local busses to operate until at least an hour after bars close.

tl;dr: one cannot reasonably expect people to behave responsibly without there
being reasonable alternatives

~~~
malandrew
Actually there is a reasonable alternative: Don't live in cities that fail to
provide a reasonable alternative. A car is only a reasonable alternative in
rural areas and as a mode of inter-city transport.

~~~
ArtB
I think in Canada that describes only 3 cities, and even then a lot of the
tech companies are on the outskirts since the offices are cheaper.

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robatsu
I live in Japan 1/2 time. Apparently, when a driver here hits a pedestrian or
cyclist, he's got a lot of explaining to do.

As a result, the drivers are so attentive that it is not at all unusual on
reasonably busy secondary routes to see a mother pedaling her bicycle with an
infant in the basket and another small child following behind on a kids bike.

And like most parents, we let our son walk to school by himself from about 2d
grade along a route where he had to cross some fairly major 4 lane streets.

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idleloops
I sometimes think it would be better to just remove the sidewalk and enforce a
low speed restriction on roads. Sidewalks in the UK must cost a fortune, and
often the roads without are more attractive (I'm thinking country/village
lanes as opposed to motorways) .

~~~
michaelochurch
In the US we have a weird property of our speed limits. The norm is for them
to be under-posted. So a 45 mph road is usually one that you can (and in some
circumstances, should) take at 50-55 mph. And on most of those roads, you
won't get a ticket for going 5 to 10 mph over the speed limit, because that's
the normal speed.

There are two problems with this. First, there are a lot of country roads that
are properly posted, and the typical 5-10 over is seriously unsafe. I would
rather increase speed limits where appropriate and enforce them.

Second, in urban areas, the limit is set for reasons not related to road
safety, and those reasons are a lot less flexible. 10 mph over the typical
urban speed limit (of 25 mph) is the difference between about a 15% chance of
killing a pedestrian and a 65% chance.

The reality is that people don't respond strongly to posted speed limits. They
just aren't enforced often enough for the posted limit to be a major
consideration for most drivers. Traffic calming is far more effective (if also
controversial).

~~~
roguecoder
I saw a study showing the best way to cut down on pedestrian deaths in
residential areas was to eliminate the center line. When cars have to watch
out for other cars they slow down and pay more attention.

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its_so_on
interesting author name

~~~
Drbble
"aptonym"

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jaykru
Wow. I live in Cincinnati and my name is Jay. Unfortunately I wasn't around to
coin the term.

