The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking"

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, Hemmings: Spitting in the wind: Trying to pitch automotive safety in a time of highway slaughter

The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking"

Updated by Joseph Stromberg on November 4, 2015, 10:18 a.m. ET @josephstromberg

A hundred years ago, if you were a pedestrian, crossing the street was simple: You walked across it. ... Today, if there's traffic in the area and you want to follow the law, you need to find a crosswalk. And if there's a traffic light, you need to wait for it to change to green.

Fail to do so, and you're committing a crime: jaywalking. In some cities — Los Angeles, for instance — police ticket tens of thousands of pedestrians annually for jaywalking, with fines of up to $250.

To most people, this seems part of the basic nature of roads. But it's actually the result of an aggressive, forgotten 1920s campaign led by auto groups and manufacturers that redefined who owned the city streets. ... "In the early days of the automobile, it was drivers' job to avoid you, not your job to avoid them," says Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. "But under the new model, streets became a place for cars — and as a pedestrian, it's your fault if you get hit."

One of the keys to this shift was the creation of the crime of jaywalking. Here's a history of how that happened.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. It's hardly your fault if you get hit...

the driver will get ticketed and sued if you run out in front of him.

Same with bicycles.

Streets are now for cars-- that's the American way. No sidewalks, no bike lanes, few actual pedestrian areas and plazas like they have all over Europe.

And when there are pedestrian crosswalks and lights? Pedestrians are regularly too lazy or in a hurry to walk the fifty extra feet to get to them.

[undergroundpanther]

2. walking everywhere is exhausting

Especially in suburbs. A person driving in a car
Will have a shortened perception of how
Close things are to each other.

In reality that two minute walk you see in a car.
is really 10 to 15 minutes.
For some people who walk slower
Add in humidity. Hot sun or freezing cold

That ten minutes feels like 20. To want to get there
Is just as urgent in walkers if not moreso.
When we walk its often to get to an appointment we gotta move.
Bus system often sucks in places that are not a city
Just because too many people can afford cars and
Drive and dont take buses in suburban areas.ect.

There is a thing called car aparthied look it up.
I cant link from this phone but please google it.
Try to understand what its like for us who cant afford
A car or who cant drive or both in non-city areas or
Areas where cars dominate the roads.

[undergroundpanther]

3. I got hit

Was asked by a lawyer first thing if I was on a cross walk I said no.
Nevermind it was a speeding cab with its lights off at dusk.
And I looked both ways before crossing with my ex boyfreind.
I had severe injurires the car was going 45in 25mph zone all that was negated
Because I was not on a cross walk.
To this day I hate car first bullshit.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Well, that puts the lie to my statement...

but the cab's negligence should have made its liability clear.