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Comment by speleding | Hacker News Reader

Amsterdam is just like New York (New Amsterdam!) in that pedestrians (and bikes) cross wherever they like. Next up: in Amsterdam most bikes and pedestrians will not wait for a red light on small crossings when they can see there is no oncoming traffic. Technically illegal but I've never heard of anyone being fined. No harm no foul. But I guess the large intersections in New York make it trickier to estimate whether that's safe to do.

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Laws that allow cyclists to treat stop signs and red lights as yield signs are called "Idaho stop" laws and are debated fiercely.

Unfortunately, New York seems to be odd in this respect. Even at lightly used stop lights, such as the lights inside of Central Park when most vehicles can’t use the roads, the police have been known to ticket cyclists.

Then again, I’ve also seen the police ticket cyclists for speeding in the park.

Numerous Reddit threads for both topics.

Typically those crosswalks in Central Park have a lot of pedestrians. So, makes sense.

I guess jaywalking laws have been used as bandaid for what is the real problem - a complete disregard for pedestrians and cyclists on the road in big North American cities. But instead of putting more onus on the motorists, they’ve offloaded it to the former. I guess you could say the bias extends to the lawmakers. Almost feels like victim shaming, if you ask me.

But the fact is, jaywalking is against the law and when people don’t follow the rules, it just adds to the confusion which can cause more accidents. Just makes one wonder - what’s the point of it?

I think in this case the exception is Central Park, not the rest of the city. I've lived here three years and see cyclists blow through red lights every single day, it's more or less expected at this point. For better or worse, the police largely don't enforce traffic laws for bikers in NYC.

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