4 ms·
The US has a very hostile view towards pedestrians, in large part due to PR campaigns by car companies. The term jaywalking was invented to slander pedestrians
by bobbylarrybobby 7y ago
The US has a very hostile view towards pedestrians, in large part due to PR campaigns by car companies. The term jaywalking was invented to slander pedestrians not crossing “correctly” (jay is a synonym for rube).
- jimmaswell 7y agoI feel like if someone's out walking around they're probably just doing it for fun or exercise and don't have anywhere important to be. People in cars are more likely to be on a schedule. One of the reasons I think it makes more sense to favor cars in most situations.
- umanwizard 7y agoI have walked around outside in order to get places almost every day since I moved out of Arizona years ago. Even in the car-centric US, huge numbers of people live in places that aren’t quite so car-centric as Phoenix.
- drstewart 7y agoSo your view is that Uber specifically chose to not classify pedestrians correctly because of car maker propaganda? You actually believe that?
- romwell 7y agoNo, the view is that Uber (and city officials, and some of the press) are spinning hard to shift the blame to the victim of this manslaughter, by using words such as jaywalker. FYI, this is an American thing[1]. There's no jaywalker in Russian, for instance. Or French. If you know any other language that has a word for that, let me know. It didn't even spread to the UK: "In other countries such as the United Kingdom, the word is not generally used and there are no laws limiting how pedestrians can use public highways." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking#Origin_of_the_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking#Origin_of_the_term
- drstewart 7y agoFYI, your own link has a list of jurisdictions that have jaywalking or jaywalking-like laws. Did you even read it?