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It's very much like the invention of the concept of jaywalking. An organized effort to shift blame/responsibility. https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywa

It's very much like the invention of the concept of jaywalking. An organized effort to shift blame/responsibility. https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history https://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history

thanhhaimai 1y ago
Another concept comes to mind: Identity Theft. It's a crime from a criminal to scam the bank. Instead of the bank being held accountable for mistaking the identity (or don't do enough due diligent), the concept shifts the blame to the account owner, saying it's their fault for having their identity "stolen", despite them was not involved in the scam process.
- ta1243 1y ago
  Obligatory commentary on identity theft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E
- whycome 1y ago
  It’s insane that the argument from the bank really just comes down to “but they said they were you!” An individual couldn’t pull that in any other transaction.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    Usually it's a bit more complicated than that, and a reason why it's a big problem in the US is we don't have good ways to reliably gauge identity. SSNs got pushed onto everything because it's actually the only thing everyone has. Everything else is fragmented and optional. DL? State-to-state, fragmented, optional. Passports? Very optional, and expensive. Phone numbers? Much more universal, but the telephony system is not secure by any means. Usernames? Passwords? Well, we all know those aren't perfect security measures.
    - whycome 1y ago
      It’s not always more complicated than that. To add: “They knew your mom’s maiden name!” And now for some reason using an SMS as verification is the standard. (And often required).
      - const_cast 1y ago
        Right, we have various add-on solutions because the core problem is unsolvable. How do you identify every person in the US? You can't, SSN is the only way to even try to do that. But SSN is just a number. No picture, no description, no renewals, no nothing. So then we bolt-on these solutions to try to get it to work. The issue is we have multiple costs here - we have to balance security, but we also need to make sure customers can get their money most of the time they need to. I recently signed up for Apple Enhanced Data Security or whatever it was called. It made it very clear that if I lose my password, my data can never be recovered. Ever. No email address can help, no recovery mechanisms. It's sealed and done for good. I'm tech-savvy and I can live with this. Can Nana? For my money, no. We do things like security questions because they're easy and people understand them, and people use them all the time to recover accounts. Same reason we do SMS - everyone has a phone. These are imperfect solutions because perfect solutions have other issues. How many people will be locked permanently out of their bank account? How will the bank deal with those lawsuits?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-reports/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r... A good resource for anyone dealing with credit issues due to identity theft. If I recall correctly, the advice boils down to notifying the bank that the transaction was fraudulent and then notifying credit unions that the bank has been notified that the transaction is fraudulent. Of course, doing all this through proper channels. It’s still bullshit how banks sabotaged public knowledge of it but at least the law favors the consumer.
andrewla 1y ago
> An organized effort to shift blame/responsibility That seems like a very odd view to me. The article points out the rising tide of traffic accidents that led to these laws being passed. As automobiles became ubiquitous it was more and more dangerous for pedestrians to walk on roads. So the laws followed this. That auto companies were involved in the lobbying process is a non-factor; even if we had increased criminal liability for traffic fatalities, the fundamental problem is that law is downstream of culture, and that we would reach a breaking point where juries would simply not convict drivers, as it became more and more common wisdom to be wary of automobiles when crossing streets. No grand conspiracy is necessary here, this is just technology changing society and laws adapting to that reality.
- whycome 1y ago
  The laws could have limited vehicles in a number of ways if it treated shared access to the spaces as fundamental.
  - andrewla 1y ago
    Without doing further research, what are some ways that the laws could have evolved in this direction? I practically guarantee that for each idea you will be able to find a municipality that tried it and found that it didn't work for what in retrospect were very obvious reasons. The fact of the matter is that society was changing, and that was it. Places where cars go are not compatible with places that people go and cars were getting cheaper and more common and more necessary all the time.
    - cassianoleal 1y ago
      I think it's the USA and Germany who have jaywalking laws. Pretty much everywhere other country in the whole world have dealt with the problem differently.
    - Mawr 1y ago
      > I practically guarantee that for each idea you will be able to find a municipality that tried it and found that it didn't work for what in retrospect were very obvious reasons. Really? Because the humanity's track record about anything that's brand new is horrible. Lead in gasoline? Seems to help a lot with engine function, let's deploy it planet-wide before making sure it's safe. Nothing can possibly go wrong! > what are some ways that the laws could have evolved in this direction? As for laws themselves, in the event of a driver hitting a pedestrian, the driver is found automatically at fault. If it turns out the pedestrian was at fault, the driver still remains liable for 50% of the damages. (Suprised? Think, which party is the source of the danger? Can the pedestrian ever harm the driver in any way? Then how can the responsibility ever not lay on the driver?) But really, it's not laws that are needed here, but well designed infrastructure. Infrastructure that clearly communicates to everyone how to behave. Speed limits are a great example. How exactly is putting up a sign saying "pls no speederino" supposed to affect a vehicle moving at 100mph through a residental street? Is the threat of potential consequences down the line in the unlikely scenario of getting caught supposed to do that? That'd require humans to be rational actors. Now, if we put a bump on the road that will damage the vehicle if gone over at speeds of >50mph, then the speedster has only two choices: 1) go over it and immediately feel the consequences 2) slow down. Some other such measures: - raised crosswalks (The crosswalk simply continues, it's the road surface that comes up. That way it's the vehicle that intrudes on the space of the pedestrians, not the other way around. Note that this is the opposite of how it's almost always done.) - roundabouts - narrowing roads - curb extensions - chicanes - changing the road surface to be less pleasant to drive on at speed - adding and increasing curves in general
os2warpman 1y ago
Jaywalking was an invented term but it was not a new concept created as part of a conspiracy to steal the streets from pedestrians. Prior to the invention of the automobile, if a pedestrian walked onto a public street and was struck and killed by a vehicle, the pedestrian was 100% at fault unless the driver was negligent. Merely operating a vehicle in a normal manner was not negligence. It has been understood since the construction of Pompeii at the latest, that pedestrians belong on sidewalks and vehicles in the road. Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris was built in the 1600s with sidewalks. All of the oldest photos from the 1800s of major cities show a separation of vehicles and pedestrians. If you have access to a newspaper archive like I do you can run a search for jaywalking and sort by oldest result. Most of the pushback to jaywalking laws was because they required crossing at corners, not the middle of the street. People instinctively (wrongly) believed that crossing in the middle was safer. Statisticians know that corners are safer. Fun fact: you were more likely to die being run over by a horse in New York City prior to the invention of the automobile than you are to be struck and killed by an automobile today. Much MUCH more likely. >Horses killed in other, more direct ways as well. As difficult as it may be to believe given their low speeds, horse-drawn vehicles were far deadlier than their modern counterparts. In New York in 1900, 200 persons were killed by horses and horse-drawn vehicles. This contrasts with 344 auto-related fatalities in New York in 2003; given the modern city’s greater population, this means the fatality rate per capita in the horse era was roughly 75 percent higher than today. Data from Chicago show that in 1916 there were 16.9 horse-related fatalities for each 10,000 horse-drawn vehicles; this is nearly seven times the city’s fatality rate per auto in 1997. https://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/07/Access-30-02-Horse-Power.pdf https://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/20... 344 is a lot. In 2024, there were 252 auto-related fatalities (drivers, occupants, cyclists, and pedestrians) in NYC. I once saw an article that in the 1800s there were over 150 fatalities per year in San Francisco due to street cars alone so I wager the increasing value of human life in the early 1900s also contributed to jaywalking laws. Everyone just used to accept people dying left and right due to horses and trains. But again, it WAS NOT a conspiracy to steal the streets from pedestrians.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  > People instinctively (wrongly) believed that crossing in the middle was safer. Statisticians know that corners are safer. I refuse to believe this without attribution. Sure, "jaywalking" might be more dangerous than crossing at corners, but I'm highly confident that controlled zebra crossings in the middle of the street are safer.

thanhhaimai 1y ago

Another concept comes to mind: Identity Theft. It's a crime from a criminal to scam the bank. Instead of the bank being held accountable for mistaking the identity (or don't do enough due diligent), the concept shifts the blame to the account owner, saying it's their fault for having their identity "stolen", despite them was not involved in the scam process.

ta1243 1y ago
Obligatory commentary on identity theft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E
whycome 1y ago
It’s insane that the argument from the bank really just comes down to “but they said they were you!” An individual couldn’t pull that in any other transaction.
- const_cast 1y ago
  Usually it's a bit more complicated than that, and a reason why it's a big problem in the US is we don't have good ways to reliably gauge identity. SSNs got pushed onto everything because it's actually the only thing everyone has. Everything else is fragmented and optional. DL? State-to-state, fragmented, optional. Passports? Very optional, and expensive. Phone numbers? Much more universal, but the telephony system is not secure by any means. Usernames? Passwords? Well, we all know those aren't perfect security measures.
  - whycome 1y ago
    It’s not always more complicated than that. To add: “They knew your mom’s maiden name!” And now for some reason using an SMS as verification is the standard. (And often required).
    - const_cast 1y ago
      Right, we have various add-on solutions because the core problem is unsolvable. How do you identify every person in the US? You can't, SSN is the only way to even try to do that. But SSN is just a number. No picture, no description, no renewals, no nothing. So then we bolt-on these solutions to try to get it to work. The issue is we have multiple costs here - we have to balance security, but we also need to make sure customers can get their money most of the time they need to. I recently signed up for Apple Enhanced Data Security or whatever it was called. It made it very clear that if I lose my password, my data can never be recovered. Ever. No email address can help, no recovery mechanisms. It's sealed and done for good. I'm tech-savvy and I can live with this. Can Nana? For my money, no. We do things like security questions because they're easy and people understand them, and people use them all the time to recover accounts. Same reason we do SMS - everyone has a phone. These are imperfect solutions because perfect solutions have other issues. How many people will be locked permanently out of their bank account? How will the bank deal with those lawsuits?
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-reports/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r... A good resource for anyone dealing with credit issues due to identity theft. If I recall correctly, the advice boils down to notifying the bank that the transaction was fraudulent and then notifying credit unions that the bank has been notified that the transaction is fraudulent. Of course, doing all this through proper channels. It’s still bullshit how banks sabotaged public knowledge of it but at least the law favors the consumer.

andrewla 1y ago

> An organized effort to shift blame/responsibility That seems like a very odd view to me. The article points out the rising tide of traffic accidents that led to these laws being passed. As automobiles became ubiquitous it was more and more dangerous for pedestrians to walk on roads. So the laws followed this. That auto companies were involved in the lobbying process is a non-factor; even if we had increased criminal liability for traffic fatalities, the fundamental problem is that law is downstream of culture, and that we would reach a breaking point where juries would simply not convict drivers, as it became more and more common wisdom to be wary of automobiles when crossing streets. No grand conspiracy is necessary here, this is just technology changing society and laws adapting to that reality.

whycome 1y ago
The laws could have limited vehicles in a number of ways if it treated shared access to the spaces as fundamental.
- andrewla 1y ago
  Without doing further research, what are some ways that the laws could have evolved in this direction? I practically guarantee that for each idea you will be able to find a municipality that tried it and found that it didn't work for what in retrospect were very obvious reasons. The fact of the matter is that society was changing, and that was it. Places where cars go are not compatible with places that people go and cars were getting cheaper and more common and more necessary all the time.
  - cassianoleal 1y ago
    I think it's the USA and Germany who have jaywalking laws. Pretty much everywhere other country in the whole world have dealt with the problem differently.
  - Mawr 1y ago
    > I practically guarantee that for each idea you will be able to find a municipality that tried it and found that it didn't work for what in retrospect were very obvious reasons. Really? Because the humanity's track record about anything that's brand new is horrible. Lead in gasoline? Seems to help a lot with engine function, let's deploy it planet-wide before making sure it's safe. Nothing can possibly go wrong! > what are some ways that the laws could have evolved in this direction? As for laws themselves, in the event of a driver hitting a pedestrian, the driver is found automatically at fault. If it turns out the pedestrian was at fault, the driver still remains liable for 50% of the damages. (Suprised? Think, which party is the source of the danger? Can the pedestrian ever harm the driver in any way? Then how can the responsibility ever not lay on the driver?) But really, it's not laws that are needed here, but well designed infrastructure. Infrastructure that clearly communicates to everyone how to behave. Speed limits are a great example. How exactly is putting up a sign saying "pls no speederino" supposed to affect a vehicle moving at 100mph through a residental street? Is the threat of potential consequences down the line in the unlikely scenario of getting caught supposed to do that? That'd require humans to be rational actors. Now, if we put a bump on the road that will damage the vehicle if gone over at speeds of >50mph, then the speedster has only two choices: 1) go over it and immediately feel the consequences 2) slow down. Some other such measures: - raised crosswalks (The crosswalk simply continues, it's the road surface that comes up. That way it's the vehicle that intrudes on the space of the pedestrians, not the other way around. Note that this is the opposite of how it's almost always done.) - roundabouts - narrowing roads - curb extensions - chicanes - changing the road surface to be less pleasant to drive on at speed - adding and increasing curves in general

os2warpman 1y ago

Jaywalking was an invented term but it was not a new concept created as part of a conspiracy to steal the streets from pedestrians. Prior to the invention of the automobile, if a pedestrian walked onto a public street and was struck and killed by a vehicle, the pedestrian was 100% at fault unless the driver was negligent. Merely operating a vehicle in a normal manner was not negligence. It has been understood since the construction of Pompeii at the latest, that pedestrians belong on sidewalks and vehicles in the road. Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris was built in the 1600s with sidewalks. All of the oldest photos from the 1800s of major cities show a separation of vehicles and pedestrians. If you have access to a newspaper archive like I do you can run a search for jaywalking and sort by oldest result. Most of the pushback to jaywalking laws was because they required crossing at corners, not the middle of the street. People instinctively (wrongly) believed that crossing in the middle was safer. Statisticians know that corners are safer. Fun fact: you were more likely to die being run over by a horse in New York City prior to the invention of the automobile than you are to be struck and killed by an automobile today. Much MUCH more likely. >Horses killed in other, more direct ways as well. As difficult as it may be to believe given their low speeds, horse-drawn vehicles were far deadlier than their modern counterparts. In New York in 1900, 200 persons were killed by horses and horse-drawn vehicles. This contrasts with 344 auto-related fatalities in New York in 2003; given the modern city’s greater population, this means the fatality rate per capita in the horse era was roughly 75 percent higher than today. Data from Chicago show that in 1916 there were 16.9 horse-related fatalities for each 10,000 horse-drawn vehicles; this is nearly seven times the city’s fatality rate per auto in 1997. https://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2016/07/Access-30-02-Horse-Power.pdf https://www.accessmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/20... 344 is a lot. In 2024, there were 252 auto-related fatalities (drivers, occupants, cyclists, and pedestrians) in NYC. I once saw an article that in the 1800s there were over 150 fatalities per year in San Francisco due to street cars alone so I wager the increasing value of human life in the early 1900s also contributed to jaywalking laws. Everyone just used to accept people dying left and right due to horses and trains. But again, it WAS NOT a conspiracy to steal the streets from pedestrians.

bryanlarsen 1y ago
> People instinctively (wrongly) believed that crossing in the middle was safer. Statisticians know that corners are safer. I refuse to believe this without attribution. Sure, "jaywalking" might be more dangerous than crossing at corners, but I'm highly confident that controlled zebra crossings in the middle of the street are safer.