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In the US, you can generally only cross at crosswalks (for sections of roads that have crosswalks,) and only when the signal is in your favor if there is a sign

In the US, you can generally only cross at crosswalks (for sections of roads that have crosswalks,) and only when the signal is in your favor if there is a signal. Beyond that it decays into a bunch of state and local laws. You can get a ticket in many places for crossing at the wrong spot, or agains the signals, even if you didn't inconvenience anyone.

wizzwizz4 7y ago
I take it that (most of) the US doesn't have pedestrian right of way, then? That's concerning; it suggests a whole host of other things around road culture, most of which are worrying. For instance, I predict that drivers are likely to pay less attention to the road, and that collisions with pedestrians are more lethal when they do occur. I'm starting to see why the stereotypical USian drives everywhere, even in small areas.
- xsmasher 7y ago
  Pedestrians have the right of way in the situations I mentioned, but not when "jaywalking." You're not wrong about the system heavily favoring driver's convenience; and when drivers break the law (even if they injure someone) the punishments are light.
  - wizzwizz4 7y ago
    According to the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking): > Originally, the legal rule was that "all persons have an equal right in the highway, and that in exercising the right each shall take due care not to injure other users of the way".[8] In time, however, streets became the province of motorised traffic, both practically and legally. Automobile interests in the US took up the cause of labeling and scorning jaywalkers in the 1910s and early 1920s, by then the earlier term of "jay driver" was declining in use.[9][10] The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary follows in 1917. [8]: Miller McClintock for the Chicago Association of Commerce, "Report and Recommendations of the Metropolitan Street Traffic Survey", p. 133, quoted by Norton, Fighting Traffic, on p. 289. [9]: Norton, Fighting Traffic, pp. 79-79. [10]: Peter D. Norton, "Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street", Technology and Culture 48 (April 2007), 331-359 (342). doi:10.1353/tech.2007.0085

wizzwizz4 7y ago

I take it that (most of) the US doesn't have pedestrian right of way, then? That's concerning; it suggests a whole host of other things around road culture, most of which are worrying. For instance, I predict that drivers are likely to pay less attention to the road, and that collisions with pedestrians are more lethal when they do occur. I'm starting to see why the stereotypical USian drives everywhere, even in small areas.

xsmasher 7y ago
Pedestrians have the right of way in the situations I mentioned, but not when "jaywalking." You're not wrong about the system heavily favoring driver's convenience; and when drivers break the law (even if they injure someone) the punishments are light.
- wizzwizz4 7y ago
  According to the Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking): > Originally, the legal rule was that "all persons have an equal right in the highway, and that in exercising the right each shall take due care not to injure other users of the way".[8] In time, however, streets became the province of motorised traffic, both practically and legally. Automobile interests in the US took up the cause of labeling and scorning jaywalkers in the 1910s and early 1920s, by then the earlier term of "jay driver" was declining in use.[9][10] The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary follows in 1917. [8]: Miller McClintock for the Chicago Association of Commerce, "Report and Recommendations of the Metropolitan Street Traffic Survey", p. 133, quoted by Norton, Fighting Traffic, on p. 289. [9]: Norton, Fighting Traffic, pp. 79-79. [10]: Peter D. Norton, "Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street", Technology and Culture 48 (April 2007), 331-359 (342). doi:10.1353/tech.2007.0085