[jessaustin]

Pedestrians are often equipped with more effective methods of retaliation than paintballs.

This seems to imply a giant sense of entitlement on the part of automobile passengers. If you want to go fast get in an airplane. Urban areas are shared with others. If a car has to stop every ten yards to accommodate pedestrians, then that implies a certain maximum possible speed, which is fine. "Jaywalking" is as fake a legal concept as "intellectual property".

[azernik]

"Jaywalking" is not a fake concept. Streets are public property, maintained by the government, so the rules for who gets to use them and how are very legitimately in the government's purview.

If you're talking about the justification for governments making those rules in the first place, I could say the same about a rule saying pedestrians can cross in the middle of the street and cars have to yield - both are arbitrary rules, and should be judged based on their public policy outcomes.

[reagency]

Jaywalking law, including its ridiculous name , was pushed through by the auto lobby in a power grab for auto manufacturers.

[azernik]

Does that mean it's a bad public policy? For comparison, lots of public transit development is pushed through by developers who have an interest in their property values going up, but that doesn't make the results a bad thing.

The separation of traffic of different speeds has popped up in different countries and for different modes of transportation repeatedly, because the logic of the situation makes it make sense. In this case, a fast car loses a lot if its utility if it's limited by slower traffic that it's sharing the road with. The existence of car-only roads added value, and from the perspective of a society just introducing the technology, if that reduced the space available to pedestrians then so be it.

I think there's a good argument to be made that too much land has been allocated exclusively to motor transport, especially in city centers, but the existence of such dedicated thoroughfares makes total sense.

[manigandham]

Just because areas are shared doesnt mean there are no rules.

Otherwise why pay attention to traffic lights and street lanes? Just drive wherever you want - in fact why stop for pedestrians at all? Don't pedestrians have to accommodate cars too?

[jessaustin]

They haven't always had to. Presently, they do. Eventually, in a better world, they won't. Walking hasn't changed for millennia, and it won't in the foreseeable future. Riding in automobiles, however, is about to change completely.

Projecting our typical pissed-off aggressive auto-commuter attitudes into the future is a mistake, and will come to be seen as a sort of mental illness. Well-adjusted robocar passengers will pay no attention to traffic, just as normal people today don't constantly bother air stewardesses about how long their flight is taking.