BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

99% Invisible (awesome podcast btw) has a good episode on this (http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern-moloch/). That webpage also has links to other articles including on by The Atlantic Cities (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2012/04/invention-jaywalking/1837/)

Wow, this is a sad piece of American history. This should be in all US textbooks, right next to the chapter on tire companies dismantling the streetcar system. "Soon, ... car lobby groups also started taking over school safety education, stressing that "streets are for cars and children need to stay out of them". Anti-jaywalking laws were adopted in many cities in the late 1920s, and became the norm by the 1930s." The Atlantic Cities article says "One key turning point, according to Norton, came in 1923 in Cincinnati. Citizens’ anger over pedestrian deaths gave rise to a referendum drive. It gathered some 7,000 signatures in support of a rule that would have required all vehicles in the city to be fitted with speed governors limiting them to 25 miles per hour. Local auto clubs and dealers recognized that cars would be a lot harder to sell if there was a cap on their speed. So they went into overdrive in their campaign against the initiative. They sent letters to every individual with a car in the city, saying that the rule would condemn the U.S. to the fate of China, which they painted as the world’s most backward nation. They even hired pretty women to invite men to head to the polls and vote against the rule. And the measure failed." But now that we're entering the age of autonomous cars, I look forward to a day when cars are programmed to always obey the speed limit.

In Austin, Texas, a person was arrested for jaywalking and failing to produce an ID. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-26332319 The police chief defended the officers with "She’s lucky I wasn’t the arresting officer, because I wouldn’t have been as generous. … In other cities there’s cops who are actually committing sexual assaults on duty, so I thank God that this is what passes for a controversy in Austin, Texas." http://wonkette.com/542577/austin-police-chief-graciously-does-not-sexually-assault-jaywalkers-isnt-that-nice#h3Hl7qU832Pi6ftF.99

paulheckbert wrote:In Austin, Texas, a person was arrested for jaywalking and failing to produce an ID. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-26332319 The police chief defended the officers with “She’s lucky I wasn’t the arresting officer, because I wouldn’t have been as generous. … In other cities there’s cops who are actually committing sexual assaults on duty, so I thank God that this is what passes for a controversy in Austin, Texas.” http://wonkette.com/542577/austin-police-chief-graciously-does-not-sexually-assault-jaywalkers-isnt-that-nice#h3Hl7qU832Pi6ftF.99

It's good to have some perspective....

While the arrest was absurd, I think that there's more to the story than we saw in the video. I don't think cops go around arresting people for jaywalking, especially in Austin, which is sort of laid-back (I went to grad school there. Guadalupe is next to UT). The story also puts me in mind of something a cop told me the day Paul and I were clearing Pocussett Dr. He was telling me about that guy who crashed on Beechwood some years ago and ended up dying. They had a hell of a time figuring out who it was, because the guy had no ID. It wasn't until a bike cop returned from vacation and helped them find the owner through some ID put in the bike by the bike shop (Gatto used to put something in the seat tube, I think) that they were able to contact the family. It's a good idea to carry ID.

"At least I didn't rape her" is an awful justification for anything.

@jonawebb Police actually are citing people for jaywalking in Austin. I lived there from 2007-2012, also for grad school. There had been a large spate of pedestrians getting hit by cars, many of which such incidents were the fault of the pedestrians who were crossing against lights or not at intersections. In response, the police beefed up enforcement of cars running lights downtown and added more DUI enforcement. They also had random days where cops would stand at intersections known for people jaywalking and cite any pedestrian who crossed against the light. One of those intersections is the one seen above, Guadalupe at 24th where students hurrying to class frequently cross against the lights. Note, these were situations in which 2 cops would stand at each corner (so 8 total). It wasn't hard to see what was going on and just wait to cross legally. Even then, plenty of people got citations. I doubt a cop driving by would pull over if he saw a jaywalker in Austin in general, but these little stings at high pedestrian trafficked areas were definitely designed to scare people into crossing legally. Same thing with the huge number of cops at the bar district downtown on weekends to scare drunks out of driving. There are some details here

@czar, makes sense. So this woman was caught by the sting, so ID, so she needs to go downtown. That actually is the general procedure, I think. They're not going to just let you go if you don't have an ID.

Except that it's not illegal to be without an ID.

Yeah, but she wasn't be arrested for being without an ID. She was being arrested for jaywalking. They couldn't release her with a ticket because she had no ID.

Plus, it's not an arrest for jaywalking. It's just a summary offense. The problem was that she kept running past the cops trying to stop her, which is when it turned into an arrest situation. I'm not sure how it would have been handled if she'd stopped and identified herself without carrying ID when asked while being cited.

I'm guessing this is the decision process:

I would tend to agree with the flowchart except that there is typically a very low bar set for "batshit." Giving them any sort of lip or challenging their authority/manhood in any way is a ticket straight to cuffs, arrest and a good tasering. I have noticed a tendency of cops dressed in all black to act more like soldiers occupying a foreign country than like police patrolling their neighborhood. Dress them like soldiers. Train them like soldiers. Give them military equipment and they will behave like soldiers.