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> encounters with law enforcement are probably more deadly on average than jaywalking 36 pedestrians were killed last year in accidents in my city. We have one

> encounters with law enforcement are probably more deadly on average than jaywalking 36 pedestrians were killed last year in accidents in my city. We have one contested police shooting. 31 the year before that, two contested shootings. At least biweekly there's an article in the local paper about someone hit while illegally crossing a highway, often at night. I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign, luckily they survived.

wonnage 6y ago
Criminalizing jaywalking is not going to stop any of this.
LordDragonfang 6y ago
>I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign Which is an indication that jaywalking isn't the real problem here, it's inattentive drivers. How many of the 36 above were similar situations?
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  You're right, drivers should simply pause physics and magically stop their vehicle or wear nightvision goggles at all times. I was making a right turn on a 40mph road on a green light. There's a crosswalk there so I checked and the crosswalk was vacant, made the turn and proceeded to get up to speed on that road. And then immediately did a hard brake because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees, with a kid being dragged behind her, 40 feet from a crosswalk that clearly indicated DO NOT WALK. There's a reason we have signs. Follow the signs. Having the right away is not the same as being impervious to being struck by a moving vehicle.
  - reportingsjr 6y ago
    For every instance a driver like you has with someone crossing like that, there are probably 100+ of someone walking and a driver nearly plowing over them. I walk and bike around my town a lot, and I'm very cognizant of my surroundings. I can not even count how many times I've had people driving see me start to go in to a crosswalk and just totally blast through it, back out of driveways where I was very visible on the driver's side and not even look (TWICE only getting attention in time to not get hit by bashing on the car), people driving at high speed in to parking lots inches away. A month ago I was walking out of a nearby park on the only road in and out, that doesn't have a sidewalk for some idiotic reason, and I had some asshole try to sideswipe me and ended up clipping me with their mirror on purpose. Think about this next time you bring up a single instance of someone walking in a dangerous way. The design of cities in the US and the contempt of many people driving is many, many times worse for pedestrians than the other way around.
  - metabagel 6y ago
    If you can't see around the bend, you're required to slow down so that there is sufficient room for you to stop, should there be a vehicle, pedestrian, or obstruction in the road.
  - maccard 6y ago
    > You're right, drivers should simply pause physics and magically stop their vehicle or wear nightvision goggles at all times. You're being ridiculous here. Nobody is asking for that, they're asking for sensible road design and sensible rules. > because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees, with a kid being dragged behind her, 40 feet from a crosswalk that clearly indicated DO NOT WALK. That's shitty road design (if the crosswalk is 40ft from a blind blocked corner in either direction, someone might not see it travelling at speed), and arguably careless driving - blind corners could have a deer, pedestrian, broken down car, etc. > Having the right away is not the same as being impervious to being struck by a moving vehicle. Right of way or not, you are the operator of the dangerous machine,not the pedestrian. The onus is on you to pay attention to your surroundings. It doesn't matter whose fault it is if you clip a child at 40mph, they're dead.
    - reificator 6y ago
      > Right of way or not, you are the operator of the dangerous machine,not the pedestrian. The onus is on you to pay attention to your surroundings. It doesn't matter whose fault it is if you clip a child at 40mph, they're dead. This is disingenuous. Say for instance a person wants to die by being hit by traffic: they can jump out from behind a parked car right as the car passes. So in at least some percentage of cases, there's simply nothing even the most attentive driver could do to avoid hitting someone. I'm not saying cars are never at fault (I walk, ride a bike, and ride a motorcycle, each more than I drive a car; I've got plenty of first hand experience with at-fault drivers) but framing it this way seems very dishonest to me.
      - maccard 6y ago
        > So in at least some percentage of cases, there's simply nothing even the most attentive driver could do to avoid hitting someone. Only a sith deals in absolutes. Just because you can't prevent someone who _wants_ to be hit from being hit doesn't mean you shouldn't be completely vigilant. As an example, it's not reasonable to expect an obstruction on highway/motorway traffic, but it _is_ on a 40mph road with crosswalks.
  - ajuc 6y ago
    So you're driving at over 60km/h in the city (which is illegal in many countries and for a good reason) at night near a blind corner and narrowly avoid killing people and you think you did nothing wrong and it would be their own fault. That's the exact attitude that criminalization of jaywalking is teaching drivers. And that's exactly why it's killing people every day. It's just as absurd as making a law that forbids women to walk alone at night (for their own safety) and blaming them if they break that law and get raped.
  - watwut 6y ago
    > There's a crosswalk there so I checked and the crosswalk was vacant, made the turn and proceeded to get up to speed on that road. And then immediately did a hard brake because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees, 1.) If you cant see, you should not speed up. 2.) If you cant see, she cant see the crossroad either. Also, pedestrians dont are the ones with requirement to have driving license - drivers are the ones supposed to be in the know and in control.
- reificator 6y ago
  > > I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign > Which is an indication that jaywalking isn't the real problem here, it's inattentive drivers. How many of the 36 above were similar situations? Perhaps your signals are different, but in my area a "red walk sign" means "Do Not Walk". Your comment to me sounds like you're talking about a white walk sign, which would in fact be mostly attributable to inattentive drivers. But if the sign is red, then while driver inattentiveness may be involved, it's not the primary culprit.
  - 8note 6y ago
    It is still the primary culprit. The driver is licensed to be watching for and not hit pedestrians
martinald 6y ago
This is more due to terrible urban design. Often in car oriented cities you have the option of a 1mile+ detour, or jumping a dangerous road. Same with people running don't walk signs. Often (but not always) they are set to be incredibly short for pedestrians and very long green for cars (to reduce traffic). This again makes people chance it. The solution isn't criminalising it, it's building better cities.
caconym_ 6y ago
On the other hand, there are probably many more instances of jaywalking than police encounters, so the statement you quoted may still be correct. At 36x, I'd guess that's more likely than not—I've been stopped on foot by the police once that I can remember, and I've probably jaywalked thousands of times. In my own anecdotal experience, the most dangerous way to cross the road is in a marked crosswalk with a signal—as in, this is how I've come closest to death by car the most times in the city where I've been living for a few decades. Intersections with these crosswalks often have traffic coming from multiple directions, and you have to really understand the local traffic patterns to cross safely without exposing yourself to a vehicle running a red light or taking a hasty left turn without checking for pedestrians. I would be interested to know how many of the pedestrian deaths in the statistic you quoted were due to jaywalking.
- btilly 6y ago
  In my own anecdotal experience, the most dangerous way to cross the road is in a marked crosswalk with a signal... When I visited London a couple of years ago I was surprised to see that they set the crosswalk significantly back from the intersection. Meaning that a car turning actually can turn, and stop in front of the crosswalk for pedestrians. Which in turn means that the driver can pay attention to cars, decide to turn, and then separately deal with pedestrians rather than have pedestrians be part of a complicated decision. I know of no research on it, but I have to believe that this design saves lives over the American standard of having the crosswalk right at the intersection.
  - mdpye 6y ago
    Did you also notice that there's no such thing as jaywalking in the UK? I had to be told so many times on visiting the US to start to internalise it! Here, you cross where and when it's safe. Busy roads have crossings, because otherwise you might wait a very long time for it to be safe, but there are no crossings on 99% of streets, because you're allowed to cross them wherever you need to
    - btilly 6y ago
ajuc 6y ago
Criminalization of jaywalking is like criminalization of drug use (or ownership). It's not only not solving the problem - it's actively making it worse. The right way to fix pedestrian deaths on the streets is to slow the traffic down. It's a solved problem. It's been tested all over Europe. It works. As a bonus you get walkable cities, less suburbanization, smaller rich-poor division, less crime in the cities, less traffic jams, more people using public transport and bikes, less air pollution and CO2 emissions.
- bluecalm 6y ago
  While I agree about slowing down traffic I don't agree it's a solved problem in Europe. More and more countries and cities are on board but we are far away from the target in both regulations and road culture.
- Noumenon72 6y ago
  Slowing traffic down is the least desired solution because we'd have to remake all of those other things too to get the benefits. It doesn't lead to less suburbanization until people get fed up of wasting time and give up the home they actually wanted. You could solve people getting run over on the subway tracks by slowing those down too, but criminalization and station design is just a much better approach. Slowing down is inefficient and may cost just as many lifetimes, only in little pieces every day.
klyrs 6y ago
> I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign, luckily they survived. These stats are not an apples-to-apples comparison. You need to compare injuries per incident: number of vehicle-caused pedestrian injuries per pedestrian crossing vs. number of police-caused injuries per police interaction. I have seen countless pedestrians walking at their top speed, the moment the walk sign turns green, only to have it turn red before they've cleared the intersection. In many of those situations where I've been driving, I've been honked at for not carelessly running down the elderly or disabled. If every crossing was long enough to permit those folks to cross in time, cities would be deluged with complaints. How many pedestrians in your statistics were physically incapable of crossing in time? I've been nearly run over by probably a dozen cars in my life, while I've had the right of way in a crossing (my favorite being the time that a cop was looking one way and turning the other, and my timely shout saved my legs). How many pedestrians in your statistics had the right of way?

wonnage 6y ago

Criminalizing jaywalking is not going to stop any of this.

LordDragonfang 6y ago

>I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign Which is an indication that jaywalking isn't the real problem here, it's inattentive drivers. How many of the 36 above were similar situations?

vorpalhex 6y ago
You're right, drivers should simply pause physics and magically stop their vehicle or wear nightvision goggles at all times. I was making a right turn on a 40mph road on a green light. There's a crosswalk there so I checked and the crosswalk was vacant, made the turn and proceeded to get up to speed on that road. And then immediately did a hard brake because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees, with a kid being dragged behind her, 40 feet from a crosswalk that clearly indicated DO NOT WALK. There's a reason we have signs. Follow the signs. Having the right away is not the same as being impervious to being struck by a moving vehicle.
- reportingsjr 6y ago
  For every instance a driver like you has with someone crossing like that, there are probably 100+ of someone walking and a driver nearly plowing over them. I walk and bike around my town a lot, and I'm very cognizant of my surroundings. I can not even count how many times I've had people driving see me start to go in to a crosswalk and just totally blast through it, back out of driveways where I was very visible on the driver's side and not even look (TWICE only getting attention in time to not get hit by bashing on the car), people driving at high speed in to parking lots inches away. A month ago I was walking out of a nearby park on the only road in and out, that doesn't have a sidewalk for some idiotic reason, and I had some asshole try to sideswipe me and ended up clipping me with their mirror on purpose. Think about this next time you bring up a single instance of someone walking in a dangerous way. The design of cities in the US and the contempt of many people driving is many, many times worse for pedestrians than the other way around.
- metabagel 6y ago
  If you can't see around the bend, you're required to slow down so that there is sufficient room for you to stop, should there be a vehicle, pedestrian, or obstruction in the road.
- maccard 6y ago
  > You're right, drivers should simply pause physics and magically stop their vehicle or wear nightvision goggles at all times. You're being ridiculous here. Nobody is asking for that, they're asking for sensible road design and sensible rules. > because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees, with a kid being dragged behind her, 40 feet from a crosswalk that clearly indicated DO NOT WALK. That's shitty road design (if the crosswalk is 40ft from a blind blocked corner in either direction, someone might not see it travelling at speed), and arguably careless driving - blind corners could have a deer, pedestrian, broken down car, etc. > Having the right away is not the same as being impervious to being struck by a moving vehicle. Right of way or not, you are the operator of the dangerous machine,not the pedestrian. The onus is on you to pay attention to your surroundings. It doesn't matter whose fault it is if you clip a child at 40mph, they're dead.
  - reificator 6y ago
    > Right of way or not, you are the operator of the dangerous machine,not the pedestrian. The onus is on you to pay attention to your surroundings. It doesn't matter whose fault it is if you clip a child at 40mph, they're dead. This is disingenuous. Say for instance a person wants to die by being hit by traffic: they can jump out from behind a parked car right as the car passes. So in at least some percentage of cases, there's simply nothing even the most attentive driver could do to avoid hitting someone. I'm not saying cars are never at fault (I walk, ride a bike, and ride a motorcycle, each more than I drive a car; I've got plenty of first hand experience with at-fault drivers) but framing it this way seems very dishonest to me.
    - maccard 6y ago
      > So in at least some percentage of cases, there's simply nothing even the most attentive driver could do to avoid hitting someone. Only a sith deals in absolutes. Just because you can't prevent someone who _wants_ to be hit from being hit doesn't mean you shouldn't be completely vigilant. As an example, it's not reasonable to expect an obstruction on highway/motorway traffic, but it _is_ on a 40mph road with crosswalks.
- ajuc 6y ago
  So you're driving at over 60km/h in the city (which is illegal in many countries and for a good reason) at night near a blind corner and narrowly avoid killing people and you think you did nothing wrong and it would be their own fault. That's the exact attitude that criminalization of jaywalking is teaching drivers. And that's exactly why it's killing people every day. It's just as absurd as making a law that forbids women to walk alone at night (for their own safety) and blaming them if they break that law and get raped.
- watwut 6y ago
  > There's a crosswalk there so I checked and the crosswalk was vacant, made the turn and proceeded to get up to speed on that road. And then immediately did a hard brake because a woman was illegally crossing the road around a bend, covered by trees, 1.) If you cant see, you should not speed up. 2.) If you cant see, she cant see the crossroad either. Also, pedestrians dont are the ones with requirement to have driving license - drivers are the ones supposed to be in the know and in control.
reificator 6y ago
> > I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign > Which is an indication that jaywalking isn't the real problem here, it's inattentive drivers. How many of the 36 above were similar situations? Perhaps your signals are different, but in my area a "red walk sign" means "Do Not Walk". Your comment to me sounds like you're talking about a white walk sign, which would in fact be mostly attributable to inattentive drivers. But if the sign is red, then while driver inattentiveness may be involved, it's not the primary culprit.
- 8note 6y ago
  It is still the primary culprit. The driver is licensed to be watching for and not hit pedestrians

martinald 6y ago

This is more due to terrible urban design. Often in car oriented cities you have the option of a 1mile+ detour, or jumping a dangerous road. Same with people running don't walk signs. Often (but not always) they are set to be incredibly short for pedestrians and very long green for cars (to reduce traffic). This again makes people chance it. The solution isn't criminalising it, it's building better cities.

caconym_ 6y ago

On the other hand, there are probably many more instances of jaywalking than police encounters, so the statement you quoted may still be correct. At 36x, I'd guess that's more likely than not—I've been stopped on foot by the police once that I can remember, and I've probably jaywalked thousands of times. In my own anecdotal experience, the most dangerous way to cross the road is in a marked crosswalk with a signal—as in, this is how I've come closest to death by car the most times in the city where I've been living for a few decades. Intersections with these crosswalks often have traffic coming from multiple directions, and you have to really understand the local traffic patterns to cross safely without exposing yourself to a vehicle running a red light or taking a hasty left turn without checking for pedestrians. I would be interested to know how many of the pedestrian deaths in the statistic you quoted were due to jaywalking.

btilly 6y ago
In my own anecdotal experience, the most dangerous way to cross the road is in a marked crosswalk with a signal... When I visited London a couple of years ago I was surprised to see that they set the crosswalk significantly back from the intersection. Meaning that a car turning actually can turn, and stop in front of the crosswalk for pedestrians. Which in turn means that the driver can pay attention to cars, decide to turn, and then separately deal with pedestrians rather than have pedestrians be part of a complicated decision. I know of no research on it, but I have to believe that this design saves lives over the American standard of having the crosswalk right at the intersection.
- mdpye 6y ago
  Did you also notice that there's no such thing as jaywalking in the UK? I had to be told so many times on visiting the US to start to internalise it! Here, you cross where and when it's safe. Busy roads have crossings, because otherwise you might wait a very long time for it to be safe, but there are no crossings on 99% of streets, because you're allowed to cross them wherever you need to
  - btilly 6y ago

ajuc 6y ago

Criminalization of jaywalking is like criminalization of drug use (or ownership). It's not only not solving the problem - it's actively making it worse. The right way to fix pedestrian deaths on the streets is to slow the traffic down. It's a solved problem. It's been tested all over Europe. It works. As a bonus you get walkable cities, less suburbanization, smaller rich-poor division, less crime in the cities, less traffic jams, more people using public transport and bikes, less air pollution and CO2 emissions.

bluecalm 6y ago
While I agree about slowing down traffic I don't agree it's a solved problem in Europe. More and more countries and cities are on board but we are far away from the target in both regulations and road culture.
Noumenon72 6y ago
Slowing traffic down is the least desired solution because we'd have to remake all of those other things too to get the benefits. It doesn't lead to less suburbanization until people get fed up of wasting time and give up the home they actually wanted. You could solve people getting run over on the subway tracks by slowing those down too, but criminalization and station design is just a much better approach. Slowing down is inefficient and may cost just as many lifetimes, only in little pieces every day.

klyrs 6y ago

> I have unfortunately seen a pedestrian get hit by crossing on a red walk sign, luckily they survived. These stats are not an apples-to-apples comparison. You need to compare injuries per incident: number of vehicle-caused pedestrian injuries per pedestrian crossing vs. number of police-caused injuries per police interaction. I have seen countless pedestrians walking at their top speed, the moment the walk sign turns green, only to have it turn red before they've cleared the intersection. In many of those situations where I've been driving, I've been honked at for not carelessly running down the elderly or disabled. If every crossing was long enough to permit those folks to cross in time, cities would be deluged with complaints. How many pedestrians in your statistics were physically incapable of crossing in time? I've been nearly run over by probably a dozen cars in my life, while I've had the right of way in a crossing (my favorite being the time that a cop was looking one way and turning the other, and my timely shout saved my legs). How many pedestrians in your statistics had the right of way?