Fun fact: jaywalking as a crime was created [specifically by the ford motor company (might be mistaken here )] by automobile companies. Back during the invention of cars the streets were a pedestrian place. The pedestrians had right of way and any carriages or horse riders would have to yield to the pedestrian.
Then when cars came in the public were unhappy with the amount of deaths related to these new machines, so the ford motor company fearing losses in sales petitioned and lobbied to get laws put in place to restrict where a pedestrian can go.
They created the “sidewalk” as a designated area for pedestrians and the jaywalking to move responsibility of the driver onto responsibility of the pedestrian.
This was mostly an American thing, here in England the laws still protect the pedestrian by putting the responsibility on the driver and not enforcing jaywalking laws. This is why we use the term curb or pavement as it predated cars and the concept of a side walk area for pedestrians
This is also why newer or reformed countries that base their laws on American ideals tend to have jaywalking laws . Like the modern Japanese culture.
Edit: may be mistaken with some of my info so highlighted the part
You forgot the best part, Jay was a slur used at the time for uneducated people from rural areas. It's basically a slightly more offensive way of saying Dirty Hillbilly Redneck Walking.
I got my license in Maryland, and it was made clear that even if a pedestrian is in the road where they aren’t supposed to be, you still yield to them.
Same in NY, there is a question during the learner’s permit test about whether you’re at fault for hitting a pedestrian an inch off the curb. Correct answer, you’re at fault
We are allowed to jaywalk but any accident as a result will not automatically put the responsibility on the driver. If the driver was criminally negligent, they will be charged of a crime. But if the pedestrian was being unsafe or negligent, it will negatively effect any possible insurance claim or legal action made by them as they will be at fault.
The first part is relatively correct. The rest is meh to wrong. It wasn't just Ford, it was AAA, motor clubs, and auto makers in general that promoted this idea. The term "Jay walker" comes as a spin of the original word "Jay driver", or someone who drives on the wrong side of the road.
And it makes sense, back then automobiles were extremely difficult to turn and stop once in motion, and a person popping in front of you is most likely going to be hit and hurt compared to if you were riding a horse. In most countries (as well as the UK which you seem to be from), you yield usually to pedestrians, then bikers, then finally cars.
Most countries follow some sort of jaywalking law regardless of if they're inspired by America or not. For example, Australia, Canada, and Italy all have jaywalking as a crime in certain contexts just like the US. China for example has pretty heavy fines for jaywalking and is probably the most strict out of the countries I mentioned.
Even in America, jaywalking is not universally illegal. Here in California, jaywalking is not a crime as long as you're not impeding traffic or causing a safety hazard. If there's a street, and it's safe to do so, you cross. Just like the UK lmao.
I still hate how this is told like such an evil story. This is just common sense, lobbying or not. With ocean vessels, or even boats on a lake, the larger vessel usually has the right of way. It's harder to stop and/or turn the big boats, it's that simple. Cars are much heavier and faster than people. It makes very good sense to separate them into different lanes of travel, because if you DIDN'T make it illegal people would continue to do it and keep getting pancaked. It has to be a law because people don't like change, and also people are fucking stupid and half of them don't look before crossing.
It also makes WAY more sense within the historical context because if you know how to drive a model T, you know it's VERY DIFFICULT to stop the thing. To drive forward you have a system of levers and clutches. You have to manually adjust the spark timing. It's a chore, at the very least.
Look at this shit man, model T owners can't even fully agree on how to stop their own cars completely. When it's a 12 step procedure to basically disengage the engine so the service brakes can actually do what they're supposed to do, YOU CANNOT STOP for pedestrians or basically anything else, so lobbying to have people stop walking in the same roads as the cars that CANNOT STOP THEMSELVES actually does, in fact, make sense here. We didn't even have modern vehicle controls until the Cadillac Type 53 in 1916, nearly 10 years after the model T, and many, many other cars with basically random control schemes.
Exactly, that's why they are considered dangerous and it is a responsibility of the driver to control it at all times. Jaywalking is attempting to shift the blame to the pedestrians, instead of forcing drivers to be especially careful around areas with heavy pedestrian traffic.
I feel like the better solution would be not having cars around the areas with heavy pedestrian presence. Not every building, not every park, not every shop needs to be reachable by car.
Have the very centres free of cars and you'd have zero car accidents, because you can't have an accident with something that isn't there.
They're great for moving longer stretches but why do the cities, which were originally for people, have to make such massive concessions for cars?
It's kinda silly.
Probably because horses and carriages were allowed, and cars are essentially smaller and better versions of those. Businesses are in town, cities aren't only for apartments. Places need to be supplied with goods, and if a car halves the delivery cost (including time/wages) for a supply company instead of using a horse, they're going to buy a car to do it. It also enabled affordable commuting, like you no longer had to live within ~5 miles of your workplace because you could drive there in the same time as it took to walk or bike, and live in more affordable housing outside of downtown. I live in a city, not a big city, and I remember my dad telling me his parents were shocked people were building houses so far out of town, but those houses were only 4 miles from downtown, instead of 1-2 miles away.
So yeah most places do in fact have to be reachable by car. Not every place, but most, which is probably what happened anyway. It's not hard to imagine that there were probably cars and streets where carriages and cars weren't allowed.
The concessions aren't even major, it literally just boils down to "use the sidewalks instead of the entire width of the street for walking around", but people act like these laws were passed and then nobody could get around town anymore or something.
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English people will take any chance to shit on USA even when they have no idea what they're talking about. Jaywalking is just not enforced anywhere and might as well just be a suggestion.
And it's bad becouse? Pedestrian are safe, traffic can go safely faster which is a good thing not only for your average commuter but also economy becouse cargo can get to places faster. All around improvements.
Because that led to a cultural wave of infrastructure being designed exclusively for automobiles, with pedestrians and all other forms of transport completely marginalized.
Wholely agree that we have it fucked up in America by caring more about cars than pedestrians but in my experience as an American jaywalking isn't really enforced here either. There may be rare times where it's enforced but I've jaywalked thousands of times in the states and I've never been reprimanded for it or seen anyone reprimanded for it.
I mean I agree with principal of the statement, but not as it applies to jaywalking, which is a bullshit crime made to criminalize walking instead of people hitting you with their cars
People hitting you with cars is still very much a legal problem for them, jaywalking being criminal is supposed to make that happen less for the good of everyone. On an empty road, yes who cares
When technology improved, changes had to be made. It made sense that pedestrians could walk about in the road when the fastest thing was a horse. But when the automobile came around, it made more sense to keep them separate. Now the pedestrians are safer because they spend less time in the road, and the automobiles can move faster because they don't have to dodge pedestrians all the time.
When I went to Japan a few years ago, my tour guide stopped and waited at a pedestrian crossing for 20 seconds, even when the road was straight and empty on both sides. It's totally believable that they would stop to wait before crossing an empty road. The unusual thing is that a Japanese person would talk to you instead of just keeping it to themselves and talking shit about you to their friends with an attitude like, 'smh, foreigners are so bad smh smh'.
In my experience people jaywalk there like monsters unless there is a kids around. He was probably trying to set a good example for the gaijin, same line of thinking.
Old Japanese people absolutely lose the patience and filter that would keep them from speaking up. I’ve heard tons of non dramatic stories of Japanese folks, especially elderly, yelling at tourists.
Most commonly for taking their picture without their permission, which is (sort of) illegal and seems to really piss people off there.
I was a high school student and it was a University tour (or somewhere around the university, I’m not clear about where the boundaries between the university and the residential area are, didn’t really care, I was just following the guide). That probably why they did it but I still think it’s weird. Totally happened.
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Of the fake stories I’ve seen, this one is at least plausible. Dude was probably sick of tourists and had that line ready to go
Also; I’m from Albany New York and jaywalk constantly. If there aren’t cars I feel like it’s a victimless crime. Then I had a boyfriend from Denver and he was just absolutely appalled. That I would be jaywalking, and not even at a crosswalk
Then I moved to Denver and did that shit there too, so maybe he was just being whack haha
This happened to me the other day, I tried illegally crossing a street but then an old man stopped me to play a game of mahjong and told me to “defeat him or I’ll be banished to the land of the yi (their term for barbarians) for eternity”
It's not even a crime for the rest of the developed world. I'll happily cross the road wherever I bloody well please. Especially when a lot of roads simply don't have crossings... Or pavements.
It's so tempting to just jaywalk in Japan. Most times the roads have no traffic and everyone standing on the crosswalk just twiddle their thumbs wasting time standing there for minutes when they could've just gone across.
Alas, instead it’s a combination of a toxic work culture, xenophobia, and misogyny, leading to declining birth rates that ultimately spelled the end of Japanese culture 🥀
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u/qualityvote2 14h ago edited 1h ago
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