6 ms·

The red countdown timer means run in the US.

• maxbond 4y ago
  No, they are correct, it means "don't start crossing." Not everyone can run, eg, people in wheelchairs or people who need walkers, or able bodied people carrying lots of groceries. Running as a pedestrian is very dangerous. It creates confusion for drivers, it makes you more difficult to see, and it makes it more difficult for you to see if you're running in front of a moving car.
  • brewdad 4y ago
    Unless I am actually out for a run, I don't run to cross intersections but blinking hand means "cross with a sense of urgency" to me if I'm not yet crossing but I saw it start blinking and have an idea that it isn't a handful of seconds from changing.
  • kelnos 4y ago
    That's not universally correct. A few years ago, in San Francisco (I don't think it was California-wide, but maybe I'm misremembering), the law was changed so that it's legal to even start crossing on a flashing orange, as long as you are safely able to get out of the intersection before the light changes. (And as of Jan 1 of next year, jaywalking will no longer be an offense in California, so you can cross whenever and wherever you want, as long as it's not dangerous to do so.)
    • em-bee 4y ago
      is it really like that? in europe generally jaywalking is only allowed if there is no marked crossing nearby. crossing at a red light is not jaywalking but a different offence that is still punished.
      • RugnirViking 4y ago
        yep, it's like that in the UK as well. No such concept as jaywalking at all, you can cross right next to a marked crossing when its red if you must. Works on social trust and works well
        • TylerE 4y ago
          Jaywalking always seemed like such a weird “crime” to me. I’m surprised I don’t hear about it being abused more.
          • ehnto 4y ago
            You are right to feel that way, and I think it helps to picture what life was like when the term showed up. These days we take it as almost an immutable fact that cars are on roads, and people are wherever else they can fit. But back then (1910s) streets in city centers were still commonly unsealed dirt roads. While cars were starting to get popular, they still moved at walking pace, and people using roads were still a mix of adults and kids just walking about, bikes, horse drawn buggies or carts. Looking back at photographs from the time you notice that the roads are just full of foot traffic, they weren't crossing the road, the road was how they got around. But cars were getting faster and more dangerous, and it was no longer compatible to have mixed traffic. Rather than ban cars from cities, we convinced people that actually, it was the car's road afterall and you shouldn't have been there! During that time the term jay walking came about, and it was used to paint the pedestrians as the one's getting in the way of the automobile driver, rather than it being the automobile that was out of place. If we use a very cynical lens, and I think we should, it was a essentially a marketing campaign from automobile makers.
          • BoxOfRain 4y ago
            Yeah as someone from the UK the idea of crossing the road being a crime is mind-blowing, getting around would be intolerable as a pedestrian sticking to crossings.
          • skissane 4y ago
            The term "jaywalking" itself is of US origin. Most of the rest of the English-speaking world doesn't have any offence by that name. While they do tend to have certain traffic regulations prohibiting pedestrians from crossing a road in an unsafe manner, those regulations are generally narrower in scope than many "jaywalking" laws in the US are.