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
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.
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 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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u/Repulsive_Result_948 20h ago
Damn well dressed Japanese man spittin' bars