My logic is 'crossing the road is completely reasonable, doesn't harm anyone, people should be allowed to get to the other side of the road'. That logic doesn't follow to speeding, which is dangerous and selfish.
Do you realise it's not a crime in other countries? It's not in the UK and yet we have a lower road-death rate than the US. What are jaywalking laws for anyway?
Putting oneself in the path of a multi-ton vehicle that doesn't expect you to be there and placing the onus on them to avoid committing vehicular manslaughter when you could use a space explicitly designated for pedestrians is, in fact, dangerous and selfish.
The deciding factor should be if the law contributes to civil order, or reduces injury.
But you want to ban the pedestrians from the road - you don’t want ‘just as much right’ to the road - you want more right to it. You want the entire length of a block and think pedestrians should just have tiny crossing points.
> The deciding factor should be if the law contributes to civil order, or reduces injury.
But it doesn’t - we do fine without it in the UK.
I’m just against the framing of this as cars vs. people.
I’d say it’s because the roads are obviously designed to accommodate automobile traffic. Virtually all modern roads are absolutely designed car-first and it’s apparent that people on-foot aren’t meant to travel on them, except on the sidewalk.
Additionally, a “road” that is only for people and bicycles is typically just called a trail or a path. At least that’s the case where I live. If it’s surrounded by buildings then they call it a plaza.
The higher road-death rate in the US might be the reason these laws exist, rather than a symptom of the laws - or are you suggesting that making jaywalking a crime increases road deaths?
I guess traveling safely is unpopular on HN, just like in SF.
The UK has a much smaller population with more public transit, and the cities like London are so densely packed with slow-moving traffic that it's unlikely to lead to deaths. Comparing metrics without context isn't much of an argument against stopping unsafe crossings.
A human being walking around and crossing with some basic looking both ways is not a danger to anyone.
Cars are driven by people, so it's humans in cars vs humans on foot. Both can create danger to each other. Just because you can safely do something doesn't override the reason and spirit of the law.
Jaywalking is a tiny niche of a massive amount of rules that govern how we interact with each other safely. You're really not going to have a problem jaywalking unless you do it unsafely in the first place, and if you do then there's liability and enforcement ready to apply.
No.
> Both can create danger to each other.
Absolute nonsense.
The person on foot is no danger to anyone. For example, two people on foot are no danger to each other. It's only when you add a car that there's any danger at all. The entire cause of any danger whatsoever is the car. Therefore it's the car's responsibility to keep things safe and to keep out of people's way.
(Of course if the car isn't given reasonable opportunity to stop then that's the pedestrian's fault - there's always a reasonableness test.)
Basically if a human being wants to cross then of course cars should stop for them, no matter if there's a crossing or not.
If you want to argue that its about cross-modalities then why have train crossings? Just let cars drive across the tracks if they think its safe. Now surely you can see why that might be an issue?
The whole point of these laws is to create safety by reducing unpredictable events. Again, it doesn't mean you can't safely ignore the laws (even most of the time), but that's not what the law is for. It's ironic that you mention reasonableness and yet have a completely unreasonable understanding of the rules.
Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.
But yet UK prohibits pedestrians on highways and some other zones and also Occupied Northern Ireland has an offense of «pedestrian through his own negligence on a road endangers his own safety» with obscure «level 3» punishment.