It's also not a word in the German language at all, it's just "crossing the road". If you do it safely grate, if you don't not grate and if there are children nearby unsafe road crossing is really something you shouldn't do, especially it it's just because you are to lazy to walk a small bit more (I think crossing a road close by a pedestrian crossing while you aren't allowed to cross it is also the only way it is illegal outside of the case of "you action counting as endangering you or others" (like actually endangering not some absurd twisting of definitions)).
Germany seems very strict compared to the UK. You can be fined €10 in Germany for crossing when the red man is lit!
My assumption for the first 30+ years of my life, after watching US films was that it was something akin to walking while looking suspicious.
I find the differing conceptions of 'freedom' interesting. The US likes to think of itself as more free, but they can't even cross the road.
PS fyi, its 'great'. 'grate' sounds the same, but that means a thick metal grid, typically on the floor, or as to grate cheese.
It's a bit strange though because the city doesn't even have that many cars and usually it's pretty safe to just look both ways.
It’s common enough that not crossing at a red light as a pedestrian (with no cars in sight) can be a tell that you’re potentially German :)
As a general rule, I watch the cars and not the traffic lights. Mostly because many motorists (and NYC buses are the worst!) often don't pay attention to pedestrians, intersections or traffic lights. In fact, I'm more careful when walking through an intersection than in the middle of the street.
It's the most international city in the US, and a disproportionate number of people who use the roads (taxis, delivery drivers, etc) grew up in places that have a traffic system very different that the US's. People in New York routinely run red lights, roll through crosswalks, ride in the shoulder - things that you might encounter in other countries, but are generally considered disrespectful/dangerous in the US. When so many drivers grew up driving in places that tolerate those behaviors (either in their home countries or as native New Yorkers), it creates a road culture that's very different than you'd expect in other parts of America.
In other cities, you can take a "trust but verify" approach to traffic. Drivers will respect traffic lights. Pedestrians will cross where they're meant to. People will (only) use the lanes painted on the road. You have to be alert in case an outlier does something differently, but we generally consider those people selfish exceptions.
The written rules and the practiced culture deviate immensely in New York. You can't just operate by the rules and expect that everyone else will too.
Plus you have literal a-holes who ignore traffic rules on purpose, which in place where I live (Switzerland) is maybe 80% of the cyclists. I've had few near miss (5cm max) as a pedestrian where cyclist with red light zoomed through thick crowd crossing without even slowing down. Bear in mind that >=30kmh hit of pedestrian can easily end up in fatality or permanent disability, when wife worked on urgency in biggest hospital around here, there were some dead pedestrians from such collisions.
Usually it is only respected in high traffic roads, unless one wants to play frogger in real life.
And while there are technically fines, like 10 €, in practice the police has more usefull things to worry about and unless you get an officer having a bad day and someone has to pay for it, they won't care.
I don't think I can take this claim for granted.
On days where I work from home and never leave my 950 sqft apartment, 2000ish steps is trivial to reach.
Second, as a veteran jaywalker, my rule of thumb is that if a car has to hit their breaks even a little, or otherwise alter their trajectory, you're doing it wrong. The goal should be smooth movement for all.
Third, just because someone else is jaywalking does not mean you should follow them! Always asses your own path because someone else may be timing it differently.
"Walking while black"
Recently saw a courtroom video where a black man was being charged with marijuana possession. The reason for the initial stop was jaywalking, but the cop didn't even ticket him for the jaywalking, just used it as a justification for performing a search.
Judge threw the case out. Scolded the cop for clearly just wanting a reason to search a black man, evidenced by the lack of a ticket for the jaywalking.
And of course, it's just wild to me that in some states, you can get thrown in jail for YEARS for simple possession of a single nugget of marijuana, while in Oregon, my grocery store receipts literally have ads for marijuana dispensaries on the back.
We see folks trying to take away the progress we made here. My county is trying to ban shroom companies. Very sad.
A more restrictive one is avoiding driver cognitive load and distraction. City driving can be exhausting. And attention budget allocated to one concern, is less available for that other thing that's about to unexpectedly bite.
> just because someone else is jaywalking does not mean you should follow them!
Another is attending to crossing as broadcast group communication. Manhattan pedestrians waiting at a light, will, quite reasonably, cue on the motion of others. Thus I might do a red-light crossing at a sprint-and-jog, solely to avoid misleading others with a "people are starting/walking across now" cue. Especially with tourists, and anyone with attention prioritized elsewhere.
Another is to threshold on benefit. Judgement errors will be made, so gate on the current case being worth that. There are people I can't comfortably walk with, because for low-payoff diagonizations, or avoiding a moment of red-light repose, they fountain social cognitive load with abandon. The pedestrian equivalent of car high-acceleration and speeding for negligible marginal progress.
I think that principle of respect shows up a lot in infrastructure. When it seems like it was designed for people to enjoy using you get much better results than the quasi-penal school of public architecture which is sadly common.
Away (enough) from traffic lights, crossing streets is perfectly fine, but you have to watch the traffic. Walking on a street (i.e. not just crossing it) can be considered a "traffic hazard" (if there is any traffic to begin with) and may result in a fine as well. One thing clearly forbidden is crossing an Autobahn by foot which is why there are always bridges or tunnels to cross it, for pedestrians and other traffic alike.
But let's also not pretend that decriminalizing jaywalking ends this harassment. In 2023, California decriminalized jaywalking when it's not dangerous to cross. But police have still used jaywalking as a pretense for stopping (and assaulting) people. https://missionlocal.org/2024/09/sf-violent-jaywalking-incid...
Can you show me a single person that thinks/says this
Generalize it more:
"If anyone else has to go out of their way to alter their trajectory to avoid you you're doing it wrong."
This applies to just about every road interaction between any two users regardless of type.
It's easy to see how this could result in tragedy.
Germany, Japan, there is strict social compliance so it feels right anyway.
In Germany, crossing at a red light is very frowned upon. Many Germans even wait at a red pedestrian light in the middle of the night when there's zero traffic.
Crossing streets in places without pedestrian lights or designated crossings is very common, though, and I believe usually legal. (I certainly haven't heard of anybody being fined for it.)
There is quite a bit of historical evidence for this being really bad for society.
this is basically NYC law already, including pedestrian interactions
And where exactly do you live where only rich people drive cars?
That's what always gets me with these "won't you think of the poor pedestrian" arguments. I never see people arguing for their god given right to stand in front a moving locomotive. Aircraft? Only time pedestrians are allowed anywhere near the runways where they accelerate is to board the plane. But somehow with cars it's alright. Dude walks in front of a train and it's suicide. Same dude walks in front of a car and it's murder.
That's the way it works in Belgium: you wait sorry-out-of-luck for two minutes. Needless to say I've been raised (by myself) a jaywalker.. In neighboring Luxembourg you have the exact same traffic light, obviously built and sold by the very same company, looking identical except that the traffic light poles in Luxembourg have a button which pedestrian do press. And if there's no traffic, it becomes instantly green for the pedestrian. Actually even if there are cars, it'll very quickly turn green for pedestrians.
As a sidenote it is obviously safer to cross a street even though the signal is red for you while there are zero cars than to cross that same street when the signal is green for you and an incoming car is slowing down. I mean, I know, it's my right and the car should eventually stop. But I don't give a flying fuck about rights and fatality and rules if the car hits me.
I'll never stop jaywalking.
Forth, how many more people will be run over in NYC now?
You're doing it illegally in most places. If you imped the flow of traffic with the right of way, that's still an offense in most places. The article isn't clear if it's still a violation in NYC, but I bet it is.
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VC 21955. (a) Between adjacent intersections controlled by traffic control signal devices or by police officers, pedestrians shall not cross the roadway at any place except in a crosswalk.
(b) (1) A peace officer, as defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of Part 2 of the Penal Code, shall not stop a pedestrian for a violation of subdivision (a) unless a reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of a collision with a moving vehicle or other device moving exclusively by human power.
(2) This subdivision does not relieve a pedestrian from the duty of using due care for their safety.
(3) This subdivision does not relieve a driver of a vehicle from the duty of exercising due care for the safety of any pedestrian within the roadway.
Less traffic, fewer inputs/outputs to keep under observations.
A solution sometimes seen in London is a “Pedestrian Scramble”, where pedestrians are explicitly given full (and even diagonal) access to a junction with all other traffic stopped.
You used to comply? Don't comply with dumb laws and rules -- it encourages them to pile on more.
Those stated goals seem, to me, to clash with the idea of now making it up to people's discretion to cross roads wherever and whenever they want, rather than at dedicated, marked, predictable, traffic crossings equipped with signal lights that tell cars and pedestrians who has the right of way.
I'm curious in X years if the data will or will not show more pedestrians got hit by cars following this change.
I walk/run, drive, and cycle in NYC. In my view, the way NYC works in most intersections and roads is pretty close to maximally efficient. And it generally gets better over time, although it has occasionally gotten worse in the name of safety.
The things that make it that way include (1) mostly one-way roads, which makes jaywalking significantly easier and safer (2) mostly single-lane or dual-lane roads (3) well-tuned traffic lights with relatively brief cycles (4) relatively low speed limits that are brutally enforced with speed traps (5) an abundance of red light cameras.
The least safe parts of the city are those with more than 2 lanes of traffic, especially if it's bi-directional, and those with really poorly designed cycling infrastructure. My pet peeve roads are the ones that look like this:
| sidewalk | cycle lane | parking spots | road |
e.g. Grand St in Williamsburg, because this design makes jay-walking extremely dangerous. and it makes cyclists go faster than they otherwise-would, because of the (occasionally-enough-to-be-dangerous false) sense of being insulated from both pedestrians and cars.
The other major source of risks, again IME, are cyclists going counter-traffic on one-way roads, and people on electric-assisted bikes in general traveling >20mph.
In Europe you see plenty of places that are pedestrian first and the car drivers are expected to act differently as a result. Something similar happens in Amsterdam where it is a cyclist first city. Cyclists expect right of way and cars are few and far between.
So long as you go about thinking of this in terms of car first as a de facto part of life you won't understand how good it could be with less cars.
There's also the balance of power that NYC is actually mostly pedestrian. Anything that empowers pedestrians and inhibits cars is a net win for freedom of movement.
Growing up in the UK, which is car-centric but not as much as the US, jaywalking was an alien term and concept. I remember being confused by the concept when I first visited the US. In the UK there be many crossing with or without lights and regular traffic islands for pedestrians. You get used to crossing the road without signal controlled crossing. And yet the vehicle death rate in the UK is 4 times lower per 100,000 population than the US, 2 times lower per distance driven and the pedestrian death rate is 5 times lower.
But I love that way. I think the alternative is just fascism. The idea that pedestrians are illegal if they don’t use a crosswalk seems insane to me.
Those sorts of measures have been shown to have negative impact on people's behaviour.
If drivers think vulnerable road users like cyclists and pedestrians are segregated away, they'll drive at higher speeds.
Pedestrians may start to assume that it's always safe for them to walk in certain places without looking.
On the other hand, if you have a system in place where people know that traffic does mix, there will be a lot more caution from all road users.
At first I was concerned, but then I realized it's actually a lot safe. The motorbikes were cautious because there could be a pedestrian at any turn. And the pedestrians were cautious because there could be a motorbike at any moment.
Didn't see a single accident or even any near misses.
It's technically illegal to jaywalk but not punishable unless you manage to cause a traffic accident, somehow. I like these pragmatic laws.
Obviously, there's a more complex issue with jaywalking where it is a crime that is trivially easy to enforce in a discriminatory manner, and it creates endless opportunities for pretextual searches once NY's clearly unconstitutional stop-and-frisk laws were overturned.
In Europe you also have differences with some countries where crosswalk lights are as a mandate from God and nobody will cross even at 2am deserted road. And then you have countries where the crosswalk lights are mere decorations.
I think that's mostly just certain parts of Germany.
There is a massive difference between "country culturally tends towards using designated crossing points" and "it's a criminal offense to not use them". I'm curious about which countries outside of the US, especially in Europe, that criminalize jaywalking.
It's true in most city streets because even if cars drive faster outside of intersections, if we walk fast and have good visibility then it's not an issue.
There are very busy roundabouts with crosswalks right next to them. As a driver having to stop means being scared for your car's behind.
The safest way for a pedestrian to cross a road is a location where there is the greatest opportunity to avoid a collision at any speed. That means minimizing number of directions you need to watch for traffic, and maximizing the likelihood of being in the line of sight of drivers. That means you want to cross away from intersections.
Crossing between intersections means that as a pedestrian you only have to be concerned about traffic from two (or even just one) directions, and for oncoming traffic you will definitionally be in the direction the drivers are facing.
Crossing at intersections means as a pedestrian you are having to watch for traffic from more directions, including directly behind you, and traffic approaching the intersection has drivers who are necessarily going to be having to look at places other than directly in front of them in the case of traffic coming towards you on the street you are crossing, and traffic coming from the other streets may not by physically able to see you on the intersecting cross street (from their PoV) prior to actually reaching the intersection.
Hence crossing between intersections is safer because it reduces the likelihood of any collision, as it's easier for everyone involved to be aware of everyone else.
Speed of a pedestrian vs vehicle collision is much less of a safety factor than just not having the collision at all, because the difference in speed between "walk away" and "going to hospital" is very small - well within normal intersection speeds. At higher speeds of course the likelihood of going to the morgue skyrockets, but when considering the safety of "low speed" collisions it's important to consider a "low speed" collision that is minor for an adult is still easily able to kill a child, and the speed _required_ to kill is not that high as demonstrated by multiple pedestrian vs cyclist collisions that have killed people (I think generally older people or just really bad luck but its just important to recognize that the "serious damage to soft and squishy people" is way lower than people think).
If you are a certain distance away from a crosswalk, you are allowed to cross the road but must yield to oncoming cars.
It's really pretty simple and common-sense. Of course there are differences in local rules, but this is the way it usually works.
Why is it safer?
Between the intersections you only have two directions to worry about.
Which means the only legal place to cross a road is an intersection, which is significantly less safe for pedestrians.
Next time you're going for a walk, try to estimate what % of intersections or crossing points are protected (stop signs for all roads, traffic lights, or barriers). Similarly, when you're out driving try and see how much you slow down for each intersection (ie non-jaywalking crossing points) - this is not a judgement on driving style this is just about working out relative safety. Any unprotected intersection you go through without significantly slowing down (think dropping to parking lot speed) for is a location where crossing away from the intersection is safer.
Safety for pedestrians crossing a road is primarily from collision avoidance - as I said in another comment the amount of damage from a pedestrian vs vehicle collision high at even "low" car speeds.
There is one situation where some kind of enforcement is needed: crowds of people ignoring pedestrian signals, and flooding across crosswalks continuously. Then the traffic never gets a chance to move. Cars cannot safely crawl or nudge their way through the throng of people, who feel the protection of collective security.
One might argue that such large crowds are an indication that the road should be fully pedestrianized - perhaps by time-of-day, or only for specific shopping holidays (e.g. Black Friday, Xmas). The alternative for these peaks is often manual control of people and vehicles by a police/traffic/community officer, like a school crossing).
Perhaps there could be some critical crossings where there is a legally enforceable 'double-red' pedestrian signal.
They have to do this or people would just block all traffic all the time.
So this really is just to stop racial profiling. It's really not going to change much in the day to day goings on in NYC.
Having the right of way matters less than the ability to avoid an accident. If you plow into a pedestrian that you saw from three blocks away, you will absolutely be considered liable civilly since you had a clear chance to avoid a collision.
The general rule in almost every vehicle code is that having the right of way does not relieve you of the obligation to do everything reasonable to avoid collisions and injuries.
Of course you can’t run them down.
A little jaywalking is good, a lot of jaywalking renders the road unusable to cars. You don't have to be pro-car or anti-transit to recognize the inefficiency in having roads that are uselessly congested with erratic foot traffic.
I appreciate that this is one less crime the average person commits every day that a capricious enforcer can make a big deal of but the flip side is that this reduces the competitive advantage of not being law abiding to the point of absurdity and your own detriment.
> The Legal Aid Society called the legislation long overdue. The non-profit organization, which provides free legal representation to New Yorkers who cannot afford a lawyer, said police for decades have used the violation as a pretext to stop, question and frisk residents – especially those of color.
Low railings may be jumped by an agile adult, but they stop children, elderly, wheelchairs, pushchairs, suitcases or people with heavy shopping.
Divided highways may get (more) high fences in the central reservation to deter jaywalking - but of course the frustrated locals will eventually cut convenient holes.
This isn't true. Car traffic must yield to pedestrians. Pedestrians don't always have the right of way, but you (hopefully obviously) can't just arbitrarily mow them down.
The only time this would matter is if you hit someone and it went to court. Thus in practice, you have to yield to pedestrians whenever you can reasonably do so. It's actually written into NY law (section 1146: "Due Care").
As a lifelong New Yorker, I can tell you that arrest is never an option for any violation of the city's administrative code. Rather it's a fine.
And as you alluded to, black and brown people were the vast majority of those fined under the jaywalking regulation.
As a cis white guy, I didn't even know that jaywalking was 'illegal' in NYC until folks started talking about 'legalizing' it a few years ago.
As I mentioned, I've lived here pretty much all my life and have 'jaywalked' in front of police hundreds if not thousands of times and none have ever even looked at me funny.
So yes, this is a very good thing. Just one very, very small step on the road to 'a more perfect union', IMHO.
It means they can do whatever they want whenever they want wherever they want and everybody else on the road is obligated to accomodate them.
Excellent.
What?
https://chi.streetsblog.org/2022/06/08/pickups-suvs-are-driv....
How is that broken?
You could easily imagine a world where pedestrians have the right of way on the streets, and cars "request access to the road" in a similar way that pedestrians do. Actually, if this is not easy for you to imagine - it suggests enormous internal bias.
But as someone who lives in a country that has never had that law, I’m pretty sure it’s unnecessary.
Criminalizing the behavior was regulatory capture by Big Auto.
It being enforced by police from Connecticut who treat NYC’s minorities like a VR simulation was broken.
Strong recommendations and pointing out the loss in civil suits would have always been totally fine.
But most broken seems like a stretch!
When you're at an intersection, there's cars coming from many directions. In addition, from the crosswalks I've seen they don't even stop turning cars - the turning cars have to be looking and stop themselves.
Jaywalking is for selfish and impatient people who are bad at assessing risk.
Unless the street is completely empty, I guess.
What I think is crazy is all of the cities that just don't build sidewalks. I understand in certain rural areas, but yeah, many midwestern and southern cities are downright hostile to pedestrians.
In high school, a classmate tried to help me loosen up a bit, and he'd encourage our group to cross a busy stroad. "They'll stop! They'll stop for you!" he assured me. He was right...
I visited Catalonia awhile ago. My companion was a native there and helped me understand local customs. I was able to drive her car a little bit, LHD, although the roundabouts tended to bewilder me. On foot, we'd approach a busy street and she encouraged me to just cross. She showed me how to hold out a hand as a signal of my intent. Motorists would slow and yield. She was also right.
I heard that the walk signal buttons are called "beg buttons", as in "pedestrians beg to enter the street". I use them scrupulously. My justification is that a theoretical personal injury lawsuit is easier to litigate, if I can prove I was doing everything right.
I guess the way I see it is if you want your grave stone to read "Here lies AStonesThrow. He had the right of way!" then by all means, step out into traffic--they'll always stop for you.
