[herbstein]

> If jaywalking was legal, the sacrifice is that we'd have to drive slower to watch for pedestrians

I'm not too well-versed on the various American speed limits. But I can tell you the Danish ones. Here there's no concept of "jaywalking". There's simply "crossing the street", and that's functionally never illegal.

We drive 50 kph in cities, towns, and villages. That's 31 mph. On wider roads that speed is 60 kph, or 37 mph. Those are still legal to cross as you please as a pedestrian.

Our normal country roads are driven at 80 kph, or 50 mph. These have a single lane in each direction and shared with pedestrians, bicycles, scooters, and every other road-going transportation method.

The next levels of road speeds (90 kph [55 mph], 110 kph [68 mph], and 130 kph [80 mph]) are only found on roads that don't connect directly to anything used by pedestrians. Specifically, on two-lane expressways and motorways. These can only be used by cars and motorcycles.

As I said initially, I'm not too well versed in US speed limits, but it's my understanding that these speeds at least match, if not are higher, than those. In other words, there is no inherent need to slow cars down in the US to make "jaywalking" legal.

[Talanes]

I grew up in a trailer park that exited onto a highway. The parts with the intersecting streets were a 35 or maybe even 25 zone, but within a half mile in either direction it was at 55, so the traffic coming through was particularly unpredictable.

Directly across the street, with no marked crossing, was a gas station with a 24/7 mini-mart. It's a miracle I was only hit crossing that street once.