Posted on 10/31/2024 7:26:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
New Yorkers can now cross the street outside the crosswalk or against the traffic light without being ticketed by police.
Jaywalking is now legal in New York City after a bill passed by the City Council last month officially became law.
New Yorkers can now cross the street outside the crosswalk or against the traffic light without being ticketed by police.
The city council moved to decriminalize the act after city data showed that Black and Latino pedestrians were disproportionately targeted by police.
More than 90 percent of the jaywalking tickets issued last year went to Black and Latino people, according to Council Member Mercedes Narcisse.
"Let's be real, every New Yorker jaywalks. People are simply trying to get where they need to go," she said in an emailed statement. "Laws that penalize common behaviors for everyday movement shouldn't exist, especially when they unfairly impact communities of color," she said in a statement.
The new law doesn't give pedestrians the right of way when crossing outside a crosswalk. Officials advised that pedestrians should yield to traffic that has the right of way.
“Decriminalizing jaywalking in New York City is long-overdue and eradicates a mechanism that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) has, for decades, employed as a pretext to stop, question, and frisk New Yorkers, especially those from communities of color," The Legal Aid Society said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at patch.com ...
I know how to make the crime rate in NYC drop to absolutely ZERO. Ask me how.
I have never liked jaywalking laws. I’ve saved a ton of time in my life by crossing when and where I want to. Especially when in a low traffic scenario.
Could the disparity in arrests have anything to do with BEHAVIOR?
Jaywalking laws are good if used with extreme discretion. For the most part, the cops should ignore it unless they see someone almost get hit or almost cause an accident.
Now pedestrian injuries and deaths will go up and the city will respond with more signs and restrictions.
Well that’s a load off my mind next time I hypothetically visit. /sarc
Well, it was quite common when I visited in 1989, lol.
Learn how to bang on the hood and shout, “I’m walkin’ Here! I’m walkin’ here!” in your best Dustin Hoffman voice.
Why do cities even have any law now? Crapping on the side walks, sleeping in tents, jaywalking, nothing matters anymore.
Jaywalking laws are some of the dopiest in the world. As long as you don’t get hit who cares, leave it be, and pedestrians still get right of way anyway. Once I was heading to a concert, parked in the garage across the street from the theater, when I get to the street there’s not a car for a quarter mile, so I start to cross. Then some cop who sitting around doing nothing yells at me to use the crosswalk. NO CARS! So I head to the stupid crosswalk, and of course by the time I get to it there’s cars. Let people cross.
“ city data showed that Black and Latino pedestrians were disproportionately targeted by police”
No, they disproportionately walk through traffic and expect it to stop for them. Very entitled.
I live far away from NYC in a town with less than 5% blacks and about 30% Hispanic. 95% of the jaywalkers I see are black, with the rare Hispanic. Never an Asian (about 5%) or Anglo.
Who cares about saving lives.. ?
WOKE
UBER
ALLES
There is a reason blacks are overrepresented in pedestrian deaths, if you live or work in a black area you may have noticed how little attention is paid to streets, cars, and traffic, people just walk, dance, do whatever they want with no awareness that a road is a different space.
They’ll just punish drivers, which is the real reason for this.
They want to make it as difficult as possible to be independently mobile.
Will lead to more law abiding type of people leaving the city and more severe traffic injuries. Ironically, peoples of certain colors.
Or could it be because black and Latinos jaywalk more than other?
I'm not real fond of jaywalking laws but in a big city like New York I can imagine hundreds of people jaywalking in the middle of a block and almost shut down the traffic flow.
On crowded downtown city streets, limiting the masses of random jaywalking may be more about helping the flow of car traffic, to try and maintain some sort of efficiency and order on the streets.
I figured as much.
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