There's a whole complex history behind it. When cars started to be a thing there were large numbers of pedestrian casualties because, obviously, streets are for pedestrians, trolleys, and horse carriages. Trolleys are easy to avoid and horses did cause a lot of accidents but, well, they walk at like 5-6mph. Cars were new and caused a great deal of disruption and no little amount of death.
Well, in typical American style car companies and drivers associations decided to shift the blame from the car drivers to the dead pedestrians. They lobbied for laws making it illegal to walk in the street and set off the whole process of car culture taking over American cities.
Literally an example of private industry having a direct influence on politics
Car makers didn't want to have to do anything about all the people getting killed by drivers who were driving too fast and too recklessly so they started a propaganda campaign to get politicians to ban the act of walking on streets
Jaywalking tbh can be quite dangerous though. I've had guys just walk out on a 4 lane highway to cross the street with traffic. People getting actual citations or being thrown in jail is obviously ridiculous but also don't jaywalk unsafely
Seems the problem is the 4 lane highway in addition to egoistic drivers not the jaywalking.
Imho it is no business of the state to police risky behavior like that, else it ought to outlaw meat, tobacco, oil, deep frying, roofing and ladders. I would like to have safe systems of transportation (see Netherland biking and pedestrian infrastructure) but after having spent some time in New Dheli I believe that even on high ways car drivers could drive much more safely if they would focus on the pedestrians and just reduce their speed instead of acting like all the space is theirs forever.
Jaywalking being a crime is so absurd. Land of the free except if you step there.
There's a whole complex history behind it. When cars started to be a thing there were large numbers of pedestrian casualties because, obviously, streets are for pedestrians, trolleys, and horse carriages. Trolleys are easy to avoid and horses did cause a lot of accidents but, well, they walk at like 5-6mph. Cars were new and caused a great deal of disruption and no little amount of death.
Well, in typical American style car companies and drivers associations decided to shift the blame from the car drivers to the dead pedestrians. They lobbied for laws making it illegal to walk in the street and set off the whole process of car culture taking over American cities.
Literally an example of private industry having a direct influence on politics
Car makers didn't want to have to do anything about all the people getting killed by drivers who were driving too fast and too recklessly so they started a propaganda campaign to get politicians to ban the act of walking on streets
and of course it went down easy because the criminal legal system is always looking for pretexts to dole out violence
Remember “free speech zones?”
Jaywalking tbh can be quite dangerous though. I've had guys just walk out on a 4 lane highway to cross the street with traffic. People getting actual citations or being thrown in jail is obviously ridiculous but also don't jaywalk unsafely
Seems the problem is the 4 lane highway in addition to egoistic drivers not the jaywalking.
Imho it is no business of the state to police risky behavior like that, else it ought to outlaw meat, tobacco, oil, deep frying, roofing and ladders. I would like to have safe systems of transportation (see Netherland biking and pedestrian infrastructure) but after having spent some time in New Dheli I believe that even on high ways car drivers could drive much more safely if they would focus on the pedestrians and just reduce their speed instead of acting like all the space is theirs forever.