The fact that such a terrible word like "Jaywalking" exists in English is fascinating. Is the English-speaking world really that much brainwashed by the auto industry? Oh to be a pedestrian at an intersection "for cars"! 5e1w66

You cross the road when it's empty, you cross the road when both you and the oncoming driver can understand each other's intent, you cross the road when the light for pedestrians is green and the vehicles visibly halt.

Your time and energy isn't worth walking towards the intentionally non-strategically placed crosswalks, where not even the green lights and crosswalk boundaries guarantee the safety of your life.

Quote from thehamzatsuit

The fact that such a terrible word like "Jaywalking" exists in English is fascinating. Is the English-speaking world really that much brainwashed by the auto industry?

Nah, I think it's just Americans who are brainwashed by the car industry. (and it is, indeed, the car industry, who invented the term and concept. This is well documented)
And that's actually one of the mildest examples, by far, of how thoroughly Americans have been brainwashed by the car industry.

I’m really careful about jaywalking after the police caught me once, even though I didn’t get a fine, only a warning.

Situational jaywalking is normal in my area (and most of the world, actually). As long as you look both ways, you're basically fine (always crossing at a crosswalk (or street corners) won't save you from a speeding moron).

The only time I was nearly runover was when a pair of idiots were speeding down the sharply-curved crosswalk-less street I lived on… only four years after a guy had gotten his car wrapped around a tree doing the the same damn thing. What's more, the guy who had his car totalled was way smarter — his accident was on a Saturday night in April (the street had the back of the high school) and he was going uphill, the idiots who nearly hit me were going downhill at about 40 mph on a 25 mph street at 4:30 pm on a rainy weekday with ice still on the ground from the last storm of the season (I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd hit the house opposite the street at the T-intersection at the bottom of the hill; there was no way they would have been able to stop at the sign there, since it takes more than 6 to 8 yards to slow down at that speed, especially at that steep a grade). And yes, the guy who wrecked his car came out of it fine and never did anything of that ilk again.

So yeah, only crossing at crosswalks or corners when there's no apparent traffic doesn't actually reduce risk factors — anyone who is being that careless isn't thinking that far (and should have their license revoked).

It has nothing to do with brainwashing or the auto-industry (that sounds like a conspiracy theory from the start).

For starters, traffic accidents were also a problem before cars (for example, Marie Curie's husband, Pierre Curie, died from slipping in front the wheels of a horse-drawn cart and getting runover).

The term was first recorded in 1912, and originates in the earlier term "jay-drivers" for people who drove carriages or, later, cars on the wrong side of the road (first recorded in 1905).

"Jaywalking" originally, and technically, refers to pedestrians crossing or walking in defiance of vehicular traffic (mostly, in the face of oncoming traffic — Darwin Award worthy, for the most part). Due to the increase in total traffic in urban locations, the term has been extended to crossing the street at any point other than street corners or crosswalks — but for most countries the Law only bothers with pedestrians' crossing locations or walking in the road when an accident occurs (which is why it's on the books at all in the United States, and only as a misdemeanour; the United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies don't have such laws, in part because of how their settlements and roads developed — prior to the carriages becoming popular, let alone the advent of the car).

As for civil law countries, they mostly follow the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. It's all within common sense — and enforcement of the laws follows suit. Overall, the application of the law is more "if it's a high speed area, or there's a crosswalk in sight, don't think of crossing anywhere but the crosswalk" than "roads are for vehicles, pedestrians must yield" (which seems to be what you both are implying the American auto-industry to be in favour of).

The locations with the strictest laws are not the United States or the Commonwealth of Nations, nor typical Civil Law countries, but in nations like on one hand (culturally, the French prefer to have laws about everything, but enforcement for non-felonies is more by severity), but in practice nations with long histories of authoritarian governance, such as Russia or China, are stricter.

Quote from blackluna

It has nothing to do with brainwashing or the auto-industry (that sounds like a conspiracy theory from the start).

For it to be a conspiracy theory, it would have to lack evidence.
This is a well documented fact. Look it up ...outside of a dictionary.
Or just watch this.

For starters, traffic accidents were also a problem before cars (for example, Marie Curie's husband, Pierre Curie, died from slipping in front the wheels of a horse-drawn cart and getting runover).

...
Technically traffic accidents happen among pedestrians, but no one is talking about that, as a problem.
Traffic accidents was an essentially non-existent issue, before cars.
Yes, you technically did had the rare occasional accidents, but no one talked about traffic accidents.
They talked about individual accidents. Not anything systematic.

"Jaywalking" originally, and technically, refers to pedestrians crossing or walking in defiance of vehicular traffic

...according to car industry slander.