Jaywalking
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- For The Tonight Show skit, see Jaywalking (The Tonight Show).
Jaywalking is a term used to describe when a pedestrian crosses the street without regard to traffic regulations. In common use, the term generally refers to someone crossing a busy street outside of a designated crosswalk.
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Etymology
The word jaywalker traces back to 1917, though it may have been in use as early as 1900. It is generally considered to have originated in the United States, possibly from the city of Boston. It is a portmanteau of the words jay and walk; in this context, jay is used in the obsolete slang sense, referring to a stupid or dull person. At the time, vehicles and traffic signals were a new concept, gaining popularity in the larger cities, so this term would have been most commonly used to describe newcomers who were unfamiliar with these recent developments.
Legality
Jaywalking is almost always illegal and considered an infraction. It typically carries a warning or modest fine. In some areas, although still illegal, jaywalking is so common that it is generally considered harmless, and police only detain jaywalkers if it is done dangerously or disruptively.
Penalties for jaywalking vary by municipality. For example, in Tempe, AZ, jaywalking carries fines up to $64.00. A sampling of other U.S. cities found maximum fines ranging from $57 to $750. In Brisbane, fines of up to $A200 can apply.
In the movie Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (2004), the two main characters were fined $220 after trying to illegally cross an intersection despite there being no cars in sight. This leads to them going to jail following their protests.
Causes
In many areas, jaywalking has become commonplace and continues to increase. This can be attributed to many factors, including the increasing speed of society, the tendency for pedestrians to be behind schedule, laziness, reduced fitness and walking speed, and a lack of respect for the pedestrian traffic laws or traffic in general.
In some areas, roads have become actively unfriendly to pedestrians, with long gaps between intersections with crosswalks. Several four-way intersections also feature fewer than four crosswalks, forcing pedestrians to make three crossings instead of one in order to remain legal. In these situations, jaywalking may occur out of inconvenience, annoyance, or even active civil disobedience.
In a few cases, those who practice jaywalking do so as a form of protest. They cite further ways in which roads have become less pedestrian-friendly, including reduced or removed lighting at night, and the removal of sidewalks on one or both sides of the road. To them, jaywalking is a means of expressing their discontent with the road system and its lack of consideration for non-vehicular traffic.
Safety
Jaywalking safety depends on many factors, including but not limited to the following:
- The pedestrian's level of diligence and attentiveness
- How far the pedestrian can see down the road
- How visible the pedestrian is
- The distance to the nearest point where additional unseen traffic may appear, typically intersections
- The number of lanes to cross
- The speed limit of the road
- Current condition of the road (wet, icy, etc.)
- The presence or absence of traffic
- The speed and volume of traffic (if present)
- The size of the break in traffic selected for crossing (if present)
- How common jaywalking is in the area
Jaywalking is generally safest in quiet residential neighbourhoods, where cars travel slowly, stop frequently, and are accustomed to dealing with crossing pedestrians. In some quieter neighbourhoods, the road and sidewalk are interchangeable for pedestrians; they may make long diagonal crossings in the absence of traffic, or walk entirely on the road for many reasons, including poor sidewalk conditions (e.g. snow). Traffic laws regarding pedestrians in these areas are largely ignored in favour of mutual respect, with pedestrians making room for cars, and cars making wide arcs to give pedestrians a comfortable margin.
Some supporters of jaywalking argue that on certain streets, jaywalking can be be safer than crossing properly at an intersection. When a pedestrian crosses at an intersection, there is traffic going three or more different directions, with four directions being standard in almost all cases. Vehicles may go straight, or they may turn left or right across the pedestrian's path. This is typically at high speed, sometimes without signalling, and sometimes while running red lights at even higher speeds.
In the middle of the block, cars are travelling in only two directions. If there is a raised median in the centre of the road, traffic is further reduced to one direction during each stage of the crossing. The pedestrian must only monitor one or two directions and can easily see and track all oncoming traffic. Once a break forms in the traffic, the pedestrian can cross, with little or no risk of being hit by an unseen vehicle.
Variants of this argument exist. In downtown Montréal, independent of the above argument, some also claim that it can be safer to cross at a crosswalk when the light is red. They argue that many local drivers practice very aggressive driving habits; in particular, that they have a tendency to turn right at high speed, without consideration for crossing pedestrians. However, right turns on a red light are illegal on all of the island, so a pedestrian crossing against the light has little risk of being hit by a car approaching from behind and turning right.
Driver cooperation
In some areas with few crosswalks and frequent jaywalking, if the road is otherwise safe to cross, and the existing traffic is moving slowly enough that a brief pause would not noticeably hold anyone up, some drivers will stop to allow jaywalking pedestrians to cross. This is particularly common when the traffic ahead is stopped by a red light; with the minimal oncoming traffic providing a natural opportunity to cross, and nothing to be gained by moving forward, these drivers prefer to show courtesy to crossing pedestrians.