Posted on 12/26/2013 11:36:57 AM PST by DariusBane
LOS ANGELES — In a city of seemingly endless highways — with its daily parade of car accidents, frustrating traffic jams and aggressive drivers — the Los Angeles Police Department these days is training its sights on a different road menace: jaywalkers.
It is not quite “Dragnet,” but the Police Department in recent weeks has issued dozens of tickets to workers, shoppers and tourists for illegally crossing the street in downtown Los Angeles. And the crackdown is raising questions about whether the authorities are taking sides with the long-dominant automobile here at the very time when a pedestrian culture is taking off, fueled by the burst of new offices, condominiums, hotels and restaurants rising in downtown Los Angeles.
The police say they are simply trying to maintain order at a time when downtown Los Angeles, once a place of urban tumbleweeds and the homeless, is teeming with people competing for pavement with automobiles. “There’s a huge influx of folks that come into the downtown area,” said Sgt. Larry Delgado of the Central Traffic Division. “If you go out there, you are going to see enforcement.”
Still, the enforcement has struck many of the pedestrians — the new kids on the block — as more than a little one-sided and strikingly strict. When Adam Bialik, a bartender, stepped off the curb on his way to work at the Ritz-Carlton a few blinks after the crossing signal began its red “Don’t Walk” countdown, he was met by a waiting police officer on the other side of the street and issued a ticket for $197.
“I didn’t even know that was against the law,” he said. “I was like, ‘You are the L.A.P.D., and this is what you are doing right now?’ ”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
But what I want to know is this: What kind of person becomes a cop who can hand out $197 jay walking tickets. That's what I want to know. Who can put on that uniform everyday and sell his soul for a pay check. I don't get it.
I would not even be able to look myself in the mirror doing what these "good guys" do everyday. Hassling people and taking hard earned dollars for what? These union thugs are leeches on the back of society. Sure, a city council directs them to do this, I have no problem hating politicians, or hating the ambulance chasing lawyers in robes who back up the boys in blue.
At the end of the day if they couldn't find a special type of human blood sucking leech to do the job, then no tickets would or could be issued. Where do they find these people?
Follow the money. The area is now “flush” with cash and big government wants to fill the till.
This isn’t about safety. It’s about targeting wealth.
It wasn’t a “problem” when “homeless” people wandered in the streets.
Fine, but where do they find people willing to do the dirty work. Showing up with boots, guns, tasers and the full backing of the gubment to steal money?
I don’t get it. But then again, my momma taught me to mind my own business and not to steal.
THEN talk about you feeling all sympathetic for those poor peaceful pedestrians. Let alone having to undergo it every day because you have to make deliveries in the area...
“At the end of the day if they couldn’t find a special type of human blood sucking leech to do the job, then no tickets would or could be issued. Where do they find these people? “
There is a surplus of “people” with size 44 coveralls and size 4 hats, who want to belong to a union that gets them maxi benefits, retirement at age 50, and the ability to abuse their fellow citizens and shoot their dogs. And don’t get me started talking about their “fellow leeches” over at the fire department. Same benefits and you can “eat till you’re sleepy and sleep till you’re hungry” 99% of your working life, plus you can have a side business to “supplement” your $250k annual salary.
Government job. Do it for 20 years and get a pension (with disability). Easy street.
The city of LA is doing all it can to rake in the dough.
Ever try to drove in downtown L.A.?
The pedestrians ignore the signal lights and just block traffic in all directions. It can take 1/2 hour go 2 blocks.
Yes, this is about money — the money lost by pedestrian-caused gridlock. As the article stated, downtown used to be a ghost town but no more.
Soon, they should put in the overpasses like they did on the Strip in Vegas (I remember when it was almost impossible to move on that street for the same reason).
That would’ve been the most boring episode of Dragnet EVER!
It Isn’t about safety, huh?
Does anyone realize that in slightly over 99% of the impacts between an, even at the legal speed, automobile and a jaywalking pedestrian works out much, much worse for the pedestrian.
Even in the event that the pedestrian has the “legal” Right-of-Way, it is the pedestrian who loses. Maybe not in court, but positively in the streets where these “events” generally occur.
Children are taught to “look both ways”, but adults too often think it is not meant for them.
About ten years ago, in Bellevue Washington, I saw a guy j-walk in a light traffic street into an office building in a spot where cops actually look for it. The cop revved up the bike, shot across the street, and jumped the curb so violently he almost lost it and slid throught the plate glass frontge on the building. He dashed into the building on foot to try to catch the guy.
In Houston the pedestrians have the right of way in a crosswalk with a traffic light that is green and the Metro buses will still hit (and kill) them.
I creamed a pedestrian once about seven years ago. His family tried to sue me twice. Both times my insurance company just responded and said they would be handling the case if it went to court. Both times I got a letter and nothing more. The j-walker was clearly in the wrong.
We need to quit holding drivers accountable for any collision with a J-walker. Problem solved.
For your amusement...
$197 tickets are excessive.
Speeding tickets weren’t even that high 10 years ago.
It’s the same here in Boston.Between Northeastern,the two
conservatories,the streets are jammed with pedestrians.
You have some kid walking across the street,with his head
buried in his I-phone and is shocked....shocked!! when he comes this close to being hit buy a car.
Handing out tickets for jaywalking, isn’t the worst idea
I’ve heard of.
Wikipedia entry says: The word jaywalk is a compound word derived from the word jay, an inexperienced person, and walk. No historical evidence supports an alternative folk etymology by which the word is traced to the letter “J” (characterizing the route a jaywalker might follow).
Government likes to set up a situation counter to human behavior, then make money out of it. The classic situation is build out lots of retail space with no parking. Then hire meter maids to harass the public, and make the city rich.
The city, who lacks the ability to plan a space, sets up an impossible situation, then takes peoples money. Sounds like good gubment to me.
If they planned the spaces correctly, no revenue.
It is in the pedestrians best interest to not be stupid. Don’t be stupid, don’t get hit.
Safety achieved, but nobody gets paid.
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