[HN Gopher] California greenlights jaywalking. It's a step in th...
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California greenlights jaywalking. It's a step in the right
direction
Author : eternalban
Score : 25 points
Date : 2022-11-28 01:55 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| josephcsible wrote:
| Wasn't there just another story from the last day or so about how
| there are too many pedestrians killed by traffic? Doesn't that
| make this a big step in the wrong direction?
| stephen_g wrote:
| No, because "jaywalking" laws never really made people safer...
| There are obviously many problems to solve, but having crossing
| the street in many areas criminalised doesn't really help with
| any of them.
| blamazon wrote:
| Before jaywalking, cars were demonized as rampant killers in
| USA. There were efforts to ban them in cities entirely. Certain
| interests didn't want that, so 'jaywalking' was invented -
| suddenly cars were not the invader in the pedestrian's street,
| it was the other way around--peds were now interlopers unless
| explicitly instructed by car infrastructure. This led to cars
| going faster in urban environments, with more infrastructure
| for cars while pedestrians got smaller and smaller slices of
| the street to use. This series of events is a huge cause of the
| current state of high pedestrian deaths by traffic. Legalizing
| pedestrianism is one move in a larger strategy to unroll the
| mistakes of the past and reclaim the most valuable parts of our
| cities for humans once again.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| Prepare for a huge influx of "accidents" caused by pedestrians
| intentionally getting hit or pretending to get hit by vehicles.
| Then, prepare for the subsequent increase in vehicle insurance
| costs.
| koyote wrote:
| Is this an issue in countries where jaywalking was never a
| thing (like the UK)?
|
| Being allowed to cross a road at any point does not imply that
| you are indemnified for intentionally jumping into traffic.
| crote wrote:
| I can't speak for the UK, but in The Netherlands the driver
| is virtually always considered to be at fault - except
| _extremely_ rare ones where the driver could not have
| _possibly_ anticipated and /or avoided it. To give an
| example, hitting a child who suddenly runs onto the road is
| the driver's fault, as children are well-known to be
| unpredictable and do stupid things.
|
| But no, insurance fraud like that does not really exist here,
| probably because there is nothing to gain from it. We don't
| do multi-million-dollar lawsuits for things like emotional
| damage, and liability is just a thing between your insurance
| and theirs.
| thebooktocome wrote:
| It doesn't seem likely that a minor misdemeanor jaywalking
| ticket, very rarely enforced (at least, as far as I have seen),
| would really budge the needle either way as far as the overall
| frequency of jaywalking is concerned.
|
| So rest assured. Your precious insurance premiums are safe.
| refurb wrote:
| CA doesn't prosecute major crimes like burglary, shoplifting or
| drug possession. How many people have gotten ticketed for
| jaywalking beyond the rare exception?
|
| I jaywalk all the time, even in front of cops and nothing
| happened.
|
| This is like legalizing pot in CA. It's just updating the law to
| reflect enforcement.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| That's because jaywalking is frequently, if not always, used as
| a pretext to stop and investigate someone for purposes of
| harassments or profiling.
|
| Do you dress well, and generally look like a law abiding
| citizen? I'll bet you never get stopped.
|
| If you wrapped yourself in blankets and started pushing a
| shopping cart in an affluent area, you would learn all about
| laws that you had no idea existed.
| nwiswell wrote:
| Huh? Jaywalking is not a felony, it's a traffic violation.
| You'd get a ticket. There is no criminal trial. This is like
| saying CA doesn't fine people for speeding.
|
| Jaywalking laws are probably enforced whenever they're
| convenient to enforce, i.e. against undesirables.
| bluejekyll wrote:
| You're dancing around one of the issues here, and that's
| selective enforcement. When laws like this remain on the books,
| they can be used to target specific areas or segments of the
| population. That's one reason that it's being removed.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| What's the impact on liability if you hit a pedestrian under this
| change?
|
| I'm thinking of all the ludicrous dashcam vids from Russia where
| people weakly fake getting hit by a car.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| I've never understood this attitude to crossing the road. In
| every European country, you simply cross the road if you can get
| across to the other side safely. If there is a signal, you can
| use it to stop the cars. The middle of the road seems like it
| would be a much safer place to cross than at intersections in
| many instances as there wouldn't be people turning unexpectedly.
| boc wrote:
| I found that Germans in Berlin got quite annoyed at me, an
| American, when I'd cross an empty road against the signal.
| They'd point at the "red man" and scold me. It was quite
| amusing coming from Boston where jaywalking is out of control.
| euos wrote:
| Have you left US ever? I am from eastern Europe and I spent a
| lot of time living in other countries. You should be suicidal
| to try and cross the street outside of crossing in cities like
| London and Paris. I still notice new immigrants confusing US
| drivers by giving the car the priority.
| noodlesUK wrote:
| > Have you left US ever?
|
| I'm British? If you mean have I left the UK, yes. I've been a
| lot of different places and what I mean is that the idea that
| it should be illegal to cross the road even when there are
| not any cars is a bizarre US thing.
| noobermin wrote:
| Relevant: https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-
| history
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| There was a study of traffic savvy animals (feline and canine
| mainly) some years ago who roam freely, gps trackers were
| attached and they would predominately cross roads only away
| from intersections, for the reason you cited.
|
| Why watch four or so directions when you could only watch two?
|
| I think the study had a name like the secret life of pets,
| except that's a recent cartoon movie, so may have been the
| hidden/secret lives of dogs. I searched but can't find it,
| though I'm relatively sure it was on US 60 Minutes at some
| point.
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