[flatiron]

Sometimes there is no direct victim. Whose the direct victim of public urination or jay walking? I’m not saying they should be legal it’s just nobody really gets traumatized if someone crosses the street without right of way.

[ergocoder]

We talked about different kind of crimes.

For example, the Walgreen robbing incident is a non-violent crime because nobody confronted the thieves.

I have no idea if breaking car window is considered a violent crime.

[NeverFade]

Shoplifting to that extent - pouring the contents of several shelves into a garbage bag and taking off - threatens the sustainability of businesses.

All these crimes have victims.

[creamytaco]

Besides, acts like this normalize moral and ethical rot. Do you want your kids to witness this behavior week in / week out? What do you think this does to their development? I took my family out of that cesspit years ago, when my little girl starting asking uncomfortable questions stemming from witnessing this sort of behavior.

[josephcsible]

A crime can be non-violent without also being victimless.

[NeverFade]

True, but a person barging into a business with their bike, emptying several shelves into a garbage bag, then barging out, forcefully shoving everyone out of their way - that crosses into a borderline violent crime.

I would feel very unsafe if I was at the Wallgreens when that happened. The people in the video certainly felt unsafe as well.

[smnrchrds]

Yeah. Like all white collar crimes. Madoff had many victims, but the fraud was nevertheless a non-violent crime.

[justshowpost]

Breaking car window is clearly nonviolent property crime presumed no one gets hurt.

> because nobody confronted the thieves

Not really because of this, but rather because there was no assault to addition to the property crime. Its not absolutely impossible for that robber with bicycle from the Walgreen's video to repent when guard lazily tried to stop him.

[justshowpost]

Urination damages someone's property, either private or municipal.

BTW, it appears what SanFran's sanctuary status pays off – there is steadily growing number of open defecation cases

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/City-plans-to-power-was...

[pope_meat]

If that's the case our cities should have fallen apart by now from just the dogs alone.

[astura]

I mean... Urine has destroyed light posts, before, even in SF.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/City-lamp-post-falls-...

>“We believe there was some contribution of dog or human urine on the base of the pole,” PUC spokesman Tyrone Jue said. “It has actually been an issue for us in the past. We encourage people and dogs alike to do their business in other places, like a proper restroom or one of our fire hydrants, which are stronger and made out of cast iron.” Urine accelerates the corrosion of the metal base of street poles, he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/derbyshire/293874...

>The six month monitoring survey is costing Derbyshire County Council £75,000. It was commissioned after a report found that years of exposure to the highly acidic urine from dogs can cause the base of the posts to crumple away.

>It is part of a national campaign after someone died when a light collapsed.

[asah]

Leaving this here:

Human Waste Shuts Down BART Escalators

"When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator at San Francisco's Civic Center Station last month, they found so much human excrement in its works they had to call a hazardous-materials team."

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-dow...

[rejectedandsad]

Jaywalking is one thing but public urination victimizes everyone who is near the area.

[monkeybutton]

Working from home now, there's nothing I miss less than my twice daily walk through a transit station that absolutely reeks of piss INSIDE from all the homeless folks that spend their time there. I feel sorry for the poor fare collectors that have to spend their days working in that environment.

[chrisseaton]

The whole idea of jaywalking is just absolutely bonkers. Imaging making crossing the road a crime.

[abystander]

By that logic, re: outlawing speeding: "imagine making driving a crime."

[chrisseaton]

That's not my logic.

My logic is 'crossing the road is completely reasonable, doesn't harm anyone, people should be allowed to get to the other side of the road'. That logic doesn't follow to speeding, which is dangerous and selfish.

Do you realise it's not a crime in other countries? It's not in the UK and yet we have a lower road-death rate than the US. What are jaywalking laws for anyway?

[alexjplant]

> My logic is 'crossing the road is completely reasonable, doesn't harm anyone, people should be allowed to get to the other side of the road'. That logic doesn't follow to speeding, which is dangerous and selfish.

Putting oneself in the path of a multi-ton vehicle that doesn't expect you to be there and placing the onus on them to avoid committing vehicular manslaughter when you could use a space explicitly designated for pedestrians is, in fact, dangerous and selfish.

[chrisseaton]

Why is your default that the road belongs to the car in the first place? Why should people need to stick to limited spaces 'designated' for them? How do you think we manage it in the UK without these laws and why do you think our road-death rate is lower?

[Chris2048]

In the UK, It's not legal to cross a motorway, and non-compliance with the highway code could work against you in a civil court case.

The higher road-death rate in the US might be the reason these laws exist, rather than a symptom of the laws - or are you suggesting that making jaywalking a crime increases road deaths?

[BuyMyBitcoins]

>” Why is your default that the road belongs to the car in the first place?”

I’d say it’s because the roads are obviously designed to accommodate automobile traffic. Virtually all modern roads are absolutely designed car-first and it’s apparent that people on-foot aren’t meant to travel on them, except on the sidewalk.

Additionally, a “road” that is only for people and bicycles is typically just called a trail or a path. At least that’s the case where I live. If it’s surrounded by buildings then they call it a plaza.

[true_religion]

Cars aren’t fully autonomous yet. There are people in those cars who have just as much right to tax payer funded roads while in a car as they do on their feet.

The deciding factor should be if the law contributes to civil order, or reduces injury.

[readflaggedcomm]

As an aside: when I jaywalk, it's because the cars are more predictable than at nearby intersections. Drivers don't always expect pedestrians, and when they start to move when I don't expect, I have no way to predict that or defend myself.

I guess traveling safely is unpopular on HN, just like in SF.

[manigandham]

Why stop at a red light or stay in your lane then if there's no other traffic? The rules are in place to keep order and avoid surprises. Sure you can safely cross the street but that doesn't negate the point of the law.

The UK has a much smaller population with more public transit, and the cities like London are so densely packed with slow-moving traffic that it's unlikely to lead to deaths. Comparing metrics without context isn't much of an argument against stopping unsafe crossings.

[chrisseaton]

Because cars are dangerous and need to be controlled for safety.

A human being walking around and crossing with some basic looking both ways is not a danger to anyone.

[manigandham]

Do you also agree that "A human being driving around and crossing a red light with some basic looking both ways is not a danger to anyone."?

Cars are driven by people, so it's humans in cars vs humans on foot. Both can create danger to each other. Just because you can safely do something doesn't override the reason and spirit of the law.

Jaywalking is a tiny niche of a massive amount of rules that govern how we interact with each other safely. You're really not going to have a problem jaywalking unless you do it unsafely in the first place, and if you do then there's liability and enforcement ready to apply.

[maxlybbert]

The claim is that before cars, Americans (and I assume everybody else in every other country) crossed the road wherever they felt like it. But that they were slow to catch on to the dangers of doing that with cars on the road, and car companies were worried about laws in car owners, so they lobbied for laws restricting where people could legally cross ( https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797 ).

[justshowpost]

«no jaywalking» and «no speeding» are two sides of the effort to maintain the order

Compromise does not satisfy, but dissatisfies everybody; it does not lead to any general fulfillment, but to general frustration; those who try to become everything to all people end up by not being anything to anyone.

[chrisseaton]

I don’t see how they’re two sides to anything? In the UK we have speeding laws but no jaywalking laws. You clearly don’t need both in order to balance or form a compromise.

[native_samples]

That's true but Germany also doesn't have speeding laws on their autobahns, and the UK does, so perhaps speeding laws are also crazy? Where does it end?

[justshowpost]

Good to hear, less regulations is better.

But yet UK prohibits pedestrians on highways and some other zones and also Occupied Northern Ireland has an offense of «pedestrian through his own negligence on a road endangers his own safety» with obscure «level 3» punishment.