> Generally speaking, cops won't bother you for jaywalking in the Northeast as long as you don't obstruct traffic. Again, the point of TFA was that minor ordin

> Generally speaking, cops won't bother you for jaywalking in the Northeast as long as you don't obstruct traffic. Again, the point of TFA was that minor ordinances are selectively applied ("generally"). What you say is true only in some neighborhoods. But in neighborhoods where the police are looking for a pretext to stop someone, jaywalking ordinances are a handy tool. Selective enforcement of the law has been written about quite frequently, and is a well-studied phenomenon. As such, I won't try to rehash the body of work, but here's an example from NYC I found in a few seconds: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/the-nypd-enforces-jaywalking-when-it-damn-well-feels-like-it-7650140 http://www.villagevoice.com/news/the-nypd-enforces-jaywalkin... "A look at the precincts that report comparatively significant numbers of jaywalking citations over the past few years reveals a pattern: the South Bronx, Harlem, north Brooklyn." (TL;DR; those areas were not selected due to particularly high accident fatality rates.)