A professor from England has made the news here because he was arrested for "jaywalking" in Atlanta and thrown in the slammer for eight hours. The coverage has not been sympathetic to him.It has tended to the bemused and amused. We read that , on being stopped, he asked the officer for i.d. He plainly is not English (he has a foreign name, so is obviously suspect: maybe he's a visiting professor ) ! We expect a lot more common sense and diplomacy from a true native.Challenging a man in uniform in any foreign country has the air of the smart-arse asking for trouble. Better to apologise and plead ignorance of local ways (and pay the bribe, or pull rank, in Kenya !) He got his answer by being bundled into a police van by several officers.

The question is : is there an offence of jaywalking unique to Georgia, or Atlanta, or is it common in the States? There is no such law in Britain.We have a policy of allowing pedestrians to get themselves killed or injured unaided and unhindered, if they must.( Dubliners have a typically Irish approach. They have installed pedestrian lights in St Stephen's Green and these are fitted with a counter. It counts down the seconds you have left to get across so you can assess your chances. Passers by can take bets on whether an old lady is going to make it in 9 seconds . Anything for a gamble! )

I think anti-jaywalking laws are very common in North America - they've been in place everywhere I've lived.

And by the way I owe my life and every bone and muscle I hold dear to an alert motorist in Cork. Using my best preparing-to-jaytrot skills, I looked left and right and then de-curbed and heard a screech of tires -- or I suppose I mean tyres. It was my first day in the U.K. and I forgot you gotta watch for those wrong-side drivers. So I was immensely grateful and motioned so to him with a Buddhist bow and mudra. He just smiled, no rude comment such as you might hear in a North American city.
But you're right. If a cop spots you, usually an apologetic wave and smile will get you off. The only person I've ever seen 'busted' was an arrogant young man, long-haired, and judging by his hand-gesture, no lover of authority. I imagine he fell down in the elevator, too, on his way to custody.

The laws are very common in the US, too, and also rarely enforced in most places.

Fred, have the lawmakers in Britain considered that there are at least two victims in every auto/vehicle accident? The driver also suffers, even though he may have been obeying the law and driving carefully.

There are jaywalking laws here that vary city by city. In New York City for example they have some of the most enforced jaywalking laws I know of. If you brave enough to cross the street against the “ walk , don’t walk ” sign you take your life into your hands many times, you just better be alert and fast .


In New York City after successfully playing a game of “ Frogger ” (Not crossing at the intersection and the frog is the lil’ fella in the lower left hand corner trying to get to his lily pad) you can sometimes expect a summons once you arrive at the other side of the street. In the city they have what we call “Brownies”. They are not “real” police officers but “traffic cops”. They don’t carry a pistol and have no further powers to arrest someone than an ordinary citizen. They can however direct traffic, issue summonses for illegal parking, pedestrian violations, and they can even write up bicyclists if they break the laws, kind of like a “meter maid”.

We call them “Brownies” because pre September 11, 2001 they used to wear brown uniforms. In the guise of appearing to have more police on the streets they now wear dark blue uniforms very similar to the NYPD ones . They even have a patch that resembles the NYPD one, but it is a little different.

They have no real power other than writing summonses for non moving motor vehicle involved instances (although some of them think otherwise) and technically you don’t have to listen to them any more than a fellow New Yorker .

quote:

Originally posted by DorianGreyed:

Fred, have the lawmakers in Britain considered that there are at least two victims in every auto/vehicle accident? The driver also suffers, even though he may have been obeying the law and driving carefully.

True but the driver is the one who escapes unscathed.

In Britain it is the pedestrian who has the priority. Our Highway Code says as much. If, for example, a driver is turning a corner into another street and a pedestrian steps out, the pedestrian always has the right of way.The driver must stop and let the walker go first.

Likewise we have 'zebra crossings'.(There is one shown on the cover of the Beatles' 'Abbey Road' album ) These have no stop lights, just a flashing orange globe light, 'a Belisha beacon', on each of two striped, vertical poles on either side. They consist of parallel black and white stripes painted on the road with white zigzag lines on the approaches. Once a pedestrian steps on to the crossing any driver must stop to let them cross, provided the vehicle is not within the zigzags when the pedestrian steps out. Failure to give way is an offence.Whilst we have crossings with their own stop lights a pedestrian is free to take his chances and cross against the signal.Naturally it is an offence for a driver to ignore the stop light against him

The difference is that in the USA the car is boss and in Britain the pedestrian is.It is common for a pedestrian, particularly an elderly one, to indicate by a wave to the drivers by hand, walking stick or umbrella, that they wish to cross . As often as not they are allowed to pass.

In Newmarket, of course, the town being the headquarters of horse racing, it is the horses that have priority. Morning and evening you'll see a string of racehorses approaching any road or street.Their lead rider waves his whip to tell drivers to stop. All the drivers then wait patiently while the line of thoroughbreds crosses the road. (Be fair: in our town the horses are worth more than the people )

(France has pedestrian crossings too but they offer no legal protection to the pedestrian. French visitors are amazed when pedestrians boldly cross at one of ours and expect the traffic to stop !)

quote:

The difference is that in the USA the car is boss and in Britain the pedestrian is.

No difference here (New York) Fred, the pedestrian has the right of way here too just like you mentioned.

Out here in suburbia the signal lights for walk / don’t walk are not as common as in the city. The zebra stripes (pedestrian walkways) are very common. Same law goes here, once a pedestrian sets foot in the walkway the vehicle must stop.

Just because the pedestrian has the right of way does not make him any less dead or injured after being struck by a motor vehicle .

I believe the pedestrian (almost always) has the right of way, but there are still jaywalking laws to discourage people from running out into traffic whenever they feel like it -though they are rarely and selectively enforced.
Pedestrians do and should have the right of way, technically, but that doesn’t mean you get to just jump out in front of a vehicle and then sue him after he’s flattened you.

quote:

In Britain it is the pedestrian who has the priority. Our Highway Code says as much. If, for example, a driver is turning a corner into another street and a pedestrian steps out, the pedestrian always has the right of way.The driver must stop and let the walker go first.

That's true, but I've never seen it happen in the UK. Usually, the pedestrians wait. Going back to visit Britain, I have to keep reminding myself that cars don't stop for pedestrians at side roads.

In Canada I've found the traffic (in general; there's always some idiot) slower and more considerate of pedestrians. It's still possible (but going out of fashion, it seems) for one pedestrian to stop four lanes of traffic by stepping onto the road at a junction even if it's unmarked unmarked by pedestrian crossings. Try that in the UK!

The 'car is boss' idea in North America is most evident in those suburbs and suburban shopping centres designed exclusively for people in cars. Thee is nowhere to for people walk.

We have been taught that pedestrians always have the right. However in many states their driving manuals specifically state that pedestrians only have the right of way when following specific traffic rules.

Colorado law says that cars must yield the right-of way to a pedestrian that is crossing in the direction of
a walk symbol OR flashing symbol.
When signalized intersections are next to each other it is illegal to cross the street anywhere except at the signalized intersections. When a pedestrian crosses a
street midblock and there is not a marked crosswalk the pedestrian must yield the right-of-way to the cars.

California pedestrian laws states:
When a pedestrian crosses a road between intersections controlled by traffic-control signals or by police officers, this is considered jaywalking. It is not jaywalking to cross the street mid-block if there are not lights on both ends of the block; however, the pedestrian does not have the right-of-way in this instance.

And GA has very stringent jay walking rules and pedestrians have very few "right of ways"

Flashing or steady DON’T WALK --- No pedestrian shall start to cross the roadway in the direction of such signal, but any pedestrian who has partially completed his crossing on the WALK signal shall proceed to sidewalk or safety island while the DON’T WALK signal is showing. 40-6-96.(d) Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, any pedestrian upon a roadway shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway. 40-6-91.
section taken from the GA Legal Code of Interest to Pedestrians

Of course you would never know that pedestrians didn't own the road here in Atlanta...