I’m walking here!’: jaywalking legalized in New York City | The Guardian
I’m walking here!’: jaywalking legalized in New York City | The Guardian
New law, letting people cross street outside of crosswalk, ends racial disparities in enforcement, council member says
The new law permits pedestrians to cross a roadway at any point, including outside of a crosswalk. It also allows for crossing against traffic signals and specifically states that doing so is no longer a violation of the city’s administrative code. But the new law also warns that pedestrians crossing outside of a crosswalk do not have the right of way and that they should yield to other traffic that has the right of way.
Insane it was ever made illegal.
Eh, keeping car traffic smooth is way more challenging than keeping pedestrian traffic smooth. Also people tend to be more chaotic in there direction than cars. If a car stops in front of you you’re sorta stuck if a human stops in front of you you can always bash him in the head with a bar stool or go around or whatever.
I know it was auto manufacturers lobbying for the law but can you imagine people just randomly darting across an interstate moving at 80+ mph? I can because I have seen it before and not once have I thought wow I sure am glad that’s legal.
I think you might have picked a bad community to share your sympathies for smooth car traffic, I’m afraid.
For what it’s worth, I think it’s reasonable enough to forbid pedestrians from crossing high-speed (60+ mph) roads, but otherwise they should have full right of way over any road, and fuck the cars. They can just be patient and deal with it.
"Jaywalking" being a crime is such a fundamentally brainrot thing
The law here in Brazil, not that anyone follows it, but it basically follows the logic of "the smaller you are, the more of a right of way you have". I.e. theoretically, a car should ALWAYS stop or slow itself to save a pedestrian or cyclist or even a motorcyclist
.... Again, not that anyone follows it, but it IS on the paper.
the term used here is "vulnerable". Vulnerability gives you priority
It would be nice if this was followed but the reality of the world is the opposite. It's right of weight, not right of way.
That's the same logic in the US. Except everyone yields to animals, because you can't tell a horse or a mule not to trample that person who walks next to them
How does one "legalize" walking? Jaywalking is an absurd concept to begin with.
Step 1: be American
There are plenty of places you're not allowed to walk for your own safety and the safety of others. It's not a crazy concept, although I do think that jaywalking should be legal
“Right to Travel” == right to walk on and across an interstate freeway where 5000 lb death missiles are hurtling past me at 90 mi/hr.
Airports are so annoyingly difficult to walk around.
I prefer walking straight through, personally.
In 28 years living in New York, the vast majority of my crossing the street is done between the blocks. Some of them are very long.
And New Yorkers cross the street like we own it because we know that anyone who hits us is gonna get their ass sued off and have to pay out ridiculous amounts of money.
I support this law (fuck cars), but if you step into the street thinking an oncoming car won't destroy you like a pinata stuffed with ketchup packets, you have survived the luckiest lawsuit-free 28 years.
this really threw me when I first visited new york. I come from a place where you don't dare try that because you WILL get hit and the driver will likely get no consequences. seeing new yorkers just walk out into traffic without even looking was such a mindfuck
Good, especially since the law just targets POC.
If car traffic became 50% worse to make walking traffic 5% better, that's a win for humans in the city. It'll help convince more people to use non-car methods of transportation and that helps spark people to vote for and invest in more non-car infrastructure.
Ditching cars in populated cities isn't a magic law or anything, it's a slow incremental burn; legalizing pedestrians walking strictly helps that
Ditching cars should be done everywhere (not just in populated cities).
At least in North America, around 80% of the population lives in a populated area. That means even if we only eliminate cars for urban areas, that's still most of the cars removed. The only way I see people in rural areas getting around without a car would be with electric cargo bikes and robust train routes.
Everything we do to make car travel worse (except for ambulances and disabled folks) is a win
They were also fans of using it against left-wing protestors while ignoring the right doing it, particularly in the case of anti-genocide protests. I assume they will just find something new to pick people off in the crowd now.
Is disturbing the peace still a thing for them?
Yes.
In England and Wales where I am based, there is a really useful website that has information on laws that police like to use for protests: https://greenandblackcross.org/guides/laws/. Its a bit of a shame that the National Lawyers Guild doesn't also provide public resources on laws for the US states that they operate in in a similar way.
IIRC, it’s still illegal in many Australian states.
Australia is a police state
And this changes: nothing
Council member Mercedes Narcisse, a Brooklyn Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said on Tuesday that the new law ends racial disparities in enforcement, noting that more than 90% of the jaywalking tickets issued last year went to Black and Latino people.
Never heard of Walking While Black? This at least forces police to come up with better excuses.
This is how Illinois has been for ages. The legal penalties for hitting a pedestrian are higher to compensate. And if you hit a construction worker you'd best hope you're rich, because that's a big-ass $10k fine on top of 10 years.
Jaycarring is the new trend
restricting where and when people can walk in in a public space? sounds like communism
it's tiring to even think about the subjects to approach just to get you to see the ignorance in this comment
start by reading these 2 articles ☞
sorry this was a joke mocking conservatives who preach freedom but support jaywalking laws. i should have made it more clear.
When you can't train police not to be racist, just give up and make shit legal. What could possibly go wrong?
While I certainly don't think it should be a crime, 90% of the time I see people do it, they are near crosswalks and continue to walk towards them after dangerously playing frogger. What is the motivation? Why are you increasing the danger? Doesn't make any sense.
In a lot of situations I would rather cross mid block than at a corner crosswalk. The cars can't be relied on to stop anyway, and mid-block there are a lot less directions you have to worry about.
Even if the intersection is signalized given the existence of right turns on red it's still often safer to cross mid block.
That's a good point most places, but in NYC, there is no turn on red. I still agree with being able to cross anywhere.
I could see that in some areas. I rarely feel the need to do this myself, but there are occasions where it does make sense.
Roads are the shackles of the patriarchy. Half joking
In Denmark it's illegal to cross the road 10-20m (or something like that, forgot the exact number) from a croasswalk. Outside that zone you can cross as much as you want. We are though seeing fences pop up on higher traffic roads to discourage crossing, but mostly on ring roads in bigger cities, not in the cities themselves.
There's no exact number. The law (færdselsloven §10.5) says "nearby".
similar in Austria, if there's a crosswalk within 25 meters, you have to use it although even that law has an exemption "this doesn't apply if traffic allows it without doubt and vehicle traffic isn't impaired"
Hint: most trams in Vienna are 35 meters long, so you can cross at the other end of a tram stop if there's a crosswalk only on one end.
UI vs UX
Where I'm from you need to be at least 30 meters from a crosswalk. Although in practice it just becomes whether or not there is a crosswalk within eyesight.
For the same reason that people dangerously exceed speed limits.
