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 ...
I wonder if there was the same sympathy for drivers who were cited for driving through a crosswalk when the pedestrian was almost to the opposite curb? That is unacceptable but people crossing the road anywhere they want is ok? There have been multiple deaths/injuries near my tract because of “people” running out across the street illegally in front of traffic to cross the street and the driver has to live with the consequences.
So lets keep stealing money under color of law?
State sponsored extortion. It amazes me how on a supposedly small government website how many people DEMAND BIG gubment.
Whatever you do, we can criminalize it to protect and serve you better.
Pedestrian vs. Car: No matter who has right-of-way, car wins every time. Saw a young girl get hit once. Do not want to see that again.
There’s no one to blame but yourselves because everyone is ALLOWING their criminal government to do this!
The article does not in any way intimate that driver pedestrian accidents are a problem in Down Town L.A.
Here the split is about 50-50. This is on a small gubment website.
We have the gubment that the people demand.
There will always be revenue enhancement, my problem is when people cry “oh poor Pedestrian” but don’t seem to care about motorists. And the main point is that a lot of the people create dangerous situations, jumping out, crossing in illegal areas, riding their bikes the in the wrong direction on the street. So tell me what is your solution, to just ignore it? To ask them to please stop? Without consequence behavior will not change. If you want to argue that the fines are excessive then fine I agree with you. You can’t have it both ways, police being proactive bad, police not doing their job also bad.
How about the same horde of cops interacting and educating? That would get results. They could ticket a few bird brained malcontents who won’t change what they are doing after lots of time. Funny thing is, they wouldn’t be able to give out many tickets though because the vast majority of people want to be helpful and want to be safe.
But we can’t do that and extort money though can we?
In Taxifornia? They don’t get fine, they get bonus!
I think a lot of cops quit before making retirement. Firemen are a different matter, though.
Since I happen to live out here I have to live with it and don’t need to have it written in the article, but considering it’s the NYT, i’m not surprised.
The bad news is if that if you have a bunch of cops interacting with the public in a positive way, being approachable, and sorting out problems then everyone would be happier.
The cops could get to know the people in the area. The people in the area could get to know the cops. They could cooperate...
Naw, we can’t have that. People exist to make each other miserable and oppose each other. Better to have azz hat cops and pissed off citizens at each others throats.
Well I don’t know about where you live, but I know that out here we don’t have enough police as it is and you want to take more to “educate” people about common sense. The article probably doesn’t mention that these measures are always instituted short term in areas where the problem is acute to educate the illiterate. Also I don’t know about where you live but here in taxifornia the judges generally drastically reduce or dismiss this sort of fine for first or even second offenders, and almost always for “immigrants”.
More? Who said anything about more. Use the ones you have.
As far as not enough cops. Please. All you need is a strong second amendment and half the current cops.
You have accepted the paradigm that you live in. Police provide only an illusion of safety. If that. We don’t need big gubment to survive. However the protection racket that is big gubment will tell you otherwise.
On the cost of the ticket, you are RIGHT!! I forgot to include that point.
A $10.00 ticket that had to be paid IN PERSON at town hall would be more of a deterent, I think.
But it is still the walker who loses.
“Also I don’t know about where you live but here in taxifornia the judges generally drastically reduce or dismiss this sort of fine for first or even second offenders, and almost always for “immigrants”.”
But you still have to go in and perform proskynesis to the State don’t you? Unless you are an illegal. So why is this good? Just so you can sort of periodically “check in” and the judge can tell you it’s all good but “be a good boy?”
Sorry, I don’t need gubment to tell me that and charge me for the privilege.
“And the crackdown is raising questions...”
I’d love to know who besides the New York Times is raising questions. Names, please?
“about whether the authorities are taking sides with the long-dominant automobile here at the very time when a pedestrian culture is taking off”
Translation: “When will the rubes in Los Angeles GET IT? Cars = bad. Filthy unpleasant uncomfortable inconvenient public transportation with the occasional Town Car hired for Going Out to Dinner = Good! Because that’s the way WE do it in New York and everyone wants to be like New York. WE don’t need to own a car so NO ONE needs to own a car! We don’t like cars, so no one gets to like cars!”
“What do you mean, the entire city of Los Angeles was built to accommodate an automobile-powered culture? And your people like it that way? That can’t be true. And even if it is, it’s only because you’re stupid. CHANGE IT. CHANGE IT NOW! THE PEDESTRIAN CULTURE IN LOS ANGELES IS TAKING OFF! REALLY! BECAUSE WE’RE NEW YORK AND WE SAY SO!!!”
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