[rayiner]

A lot of this boils down to Japanese people being efficient and conscientious. I was walking around Ginza one day and noticed that sometimes you had to go multiple blocks to find a cross walk. People did it, and nobody jay walked. In DC or NYC it would have been a circus. Flying back to NYC from Tokyo is always jarring, like traveling back in time.

[avgcorrection]

> conscientious […] by not jaywalking

The term “jaywalking” is a pretty American term (that there is a term at all) invented by the car lobby way back when to stigmatize pedestrians. Of course it makes sense to cross the street (that’s what it’s called—there’s no dedicated word for it) if it is safe to do so.

And of course it would be madness on any always-busy street or on a road with four lanes or more.

[ghaff]

You will definitely find places in Europe--perhaps most of all Germany--where people absolutely do not cross against lights etc. (in general). In my experience, Americans--at least in big cities (and maybe especially on the East Coast)--are far more likely to cross streets where and when they can get off with it than in many other places.

[pier25]

> Americans--at least in big cities (and maybe especially on the East Coast)--are far more likely to cross streets where and when they can get off with it than in many other places.

Come to Mexico and that notion will be dispelled pretty quickly.

Here you can find pedestrians crossing anywhere they please, bikes going against you, street vendor carts, and cars still crossing after a red light... all at the same time.

I was in NYC just a couple of months ago and in comparison everything was quite orderly.

[nemo44x]

It’s hilarious in Germany. I’ve been at very short crossings (like 5 meters) without a car in sight and everyone just stands there waiting for the sign to change. I just cross - can’t take the New Yorker out of me.

[interfixus]

Or maybe it isn't all that hilarious. Maybe it's just you not understanding a convention, a thread in the social fabric, a way (one way) to keep society ordered and sane. You were observed crossing that street. Conclusions about your person - and perhaps even about the society you represented - were drawn. Positive or negative, but they were drawn.

[nemo44x]

I hope those conclusions were along the lines of there’s no reason to obey a signal when it’s objectively obvious that it is safe to cross. That adults can use judgement on what is ok to do within a context.

I drew my own conclusions too and had better understanding of how “it was orders I was following” happens.

[markdown]

> I just cross - can’t take the New Yorker out of me.

Yup, Americans leave this impression all over the world. Loud, obnoxious tourists who don't think local laws and norms apply to them.

[anm89]

As someone who has spent the better part of the last decade traveling I can unequivocally say I have almost never come across non Americans who feel this way. It is ALWAYS the Americans who are the the ones loudly talking trash about how terrible Americans are.

As Scott Alexander points out, these Americans counter intuitively are not being self critical when they say this, they are talking trash about the "other" Americans they don't like.

[catlikesshrimp]

I live in Latin America, and we criticize our own culture for treating foreigners better than our neighbors.

Americans are regarded as irrespectful, but treated well because they hope they leave a dollar tip.

When a foreigner comes to do bussiness, not just an American, we expect corruption and exploitation to come with it. We are hardly ever proven wrong.

[Sebb767]

> As Scott Alexander points out

Would you mind sharing the link to the post?

[rayiner]

Americans don’t follow laws and norms in their own country either, lol.

[harha]

That’s what I love about New York, don’t follow static rules that don’t make sense, otherwise you won’t be able to deal with such a complex system.

[earthboundkid]

When I went to Korea after years in Japan, I was shocked to see how much jaywalking they do. Somehow that part of “Confucian values” didn’t land the same on that side of the “East Sea”.

[yongjik]

Korea makes up for it by having their drivers ignore signs and signals all the time. (There are some pretty good stuff I can say about Korea... "traffic safety" is not one of them.)

[seanmcdirmid]

Enforcement might be the reason for that. I never saw anyone get a a jaywalking ticket in the states, but it was an almost weekly occurrence when I lived in Lausanne. Swiss police don’t mess around.

Jay walking also happens a lot in China unless some barrier or traffic warden is involved. This is the case in much of the developing world as well.

[Krasnol]

I haven't seen it enforced in Germany and despite what OP said, you can see people crossing on red light in Germany too but people tend to have a greater awareness of car traffic here. You know the car driver don't expect you to cross when he's got green and the pedestrian knows that they may die because the driver doesn't expect him to cross.

It's different in Poland for example. If you don't just go on a pedestrian crossing (no lights), no car will stop. Because of that it's more likely for people to cross on a red light because they know car drivers are trained to watch out for them. A really bad development. People die because of this.

A very helpful campaign in Germany were signs which told you to be a good example for children. It grew into the consciousness of the population and you very rarely see people cross on red when there are kids around. Also having green on demand buttons which give you FAST results helps too. They are very popular in Germany now.

[l0b0]

I lived in Geneva and worked in Lausanne (not the same periods) for a few years, and never saw anyone get fined for jaywalking in either city, not even myself. :) I guess it depends where you walk…

[seanmcdirmid]

It was on my daily bike commute into the city and was one road near the bridge (near the Vigie stop?) where it was just particularly tempting to jay walk.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

Jaywalking tickets are very much a thing in Southern California, but you'll pretty much only get one if you're doing it in a blatantly unsafe manor.

[forgingahead]

You need to spend some time in Asia or Africa to get more perspective about jay-walking habits. Americans are positively Swiss compared to the vast majority of people on this planet.

[BoorishBears]

I have never seen anyone complain about "jaywalking" when it's safe to do so, because you're not impeding traffic.

Here in NYC people will cross as the light turns green and end up with an entire intersection at a standstill.

It's amazing because even my poorly trained Greyhound has picked up a concept of "we stop for something" at intersections. He's not quite sure what, but he'll wait for some signal from me.

Yet somehow people are unable to figure that out.

[sleepydog]

Pedestrians in NYC act like royalty. I've never seen pedestrians so fearless as in NYC. They will step out in front of a moving truck if they have the right of way. And sometimes even when they don't, if they sense the driver's hesitation.

And you know what? I like it. Cars are given special treatment everywhere else in this country. I was in D.C. and VA last week and had to wait 5 minutes (!) to cross many intersections. So in NYC I sympathize for the commercial traffic and the people commuting from places without train coverage, but for everyone else, I don't really care if pedestrians hold them up. They could have been pedestrians too.

[novok]

Back then a 'jay' was basically some sort of boor or doofus. If you translated it to more modern english it would literally be idiotwalking or similar.

[throw0101a]

For a good history of this see Fighting Traffic by Peter Norton:

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2924825-fighting-traffic

[anm89]

Regardless of the history of that term, the underlying concept is not unique to the US and was not invented by the auto lobby.

[avgcorrection]

See sibling comment:

> Back then a 'jay' was basically some sort of boor or doofus. If you translated it to more modern english it would literally be idiotwalking or similar.

If other cultures don’t have some kind of stigmatic word for “crossing the street without pedestrian right-of-way” then of course it is American-specific. Just like how saying “person who has several sexual partners” and “s***” are supposed to communicate two very different things.

[aidenn0]

I remember reading a "Things that were different about America" by a Japanese visitor, and they said that everyone in the US seemed to wait for the lights to cross at crosswalks, while in Japan people just crossed whenever. It probably depends on where in Japan and where in the US you are.

DC is one of the worst; it sometimes feels like the pedestrians and cars are in competition with each other, and each just violate the rules because there's zero expectation that the other will follow the rules.

[byw]

When was the book published?

I've seen older footages of Tokyo (1960s) where the streets were pretty chaotic and dirty. Also Miyazaki described how the rivers used to be very polluted, which inspired the bath scene in Spirited Away. Not sure at what point it changed.

Also remember Americans telling me Seoul being dirty in the 80s, but is generally cleaner than western cities these days.

[aidenn0]

About 20 years ago I think?

[ghaff]

See also NYC (or at least Manhattan which I'm most familiar with). Both vehicles and pedestrians take an inch wherever they can get it.

The West Coast at least used to be more rule-abiding. Many years ago now, I remember a co-worker complaining he had gotten a ticket for jaywalking in San Francisco I think. Of course, these days you probably need to murder someone to get the police involved in SF but I digress.

And when I worked in a smaller city fairly near Boston, when going out to lunch, I was pretty much the only person who was inclined to just cross the street while my coworkers waited for the light.

So it does vary.

[BoorishBears]

I'm convinced pedestrian safety and rush hour traffic would both improve at minimal cost if people just learned to respect simple Walk/Don't Walk signals, but yes, no one wants to give an inch.

[ghaff]

Yeah, although at busy intersections, it can be really hard for vehicles to make right hand turns even if everyone does things by the book. And this isn't some special pleading for vehicles in Manhattan; I will only drive there under duress.

[BoorishBears]

The biggest rule that would make right hand turns safer and quicker for everyone involved is if people respected "Flashing red hand means don't start crossing. If you're not already in the crosswalk, don't start now."

That would give people way more time to clear out the right turn lane each cycle and reduce incidences of people trying to force their way through pedestrians.

But people don't even respect the basic "don't walk" so it's asking a lot...

[jamsinclair]

As a local, I can assure you many Japanese do jaywalk in Tokyo. Perhaps it's slightly less frequent and considerate compared to other countries.

[I_AM_A_SMURF]

Note that in a lot of major cities, crosswalks are explicitly _not_ the only places where you can walk across the street. In Seattle for example, any intersection has a "crosswalk" in it, some are marked, some aren't, but they are all the same in the eyes of the law.

There are many studies that crosswalk actually increase the number of accidents because people feel safer and pay less attention when crossing them, so cities have been removing them in a lot of spots.

[davidjytang]

One of my coworkers in Taiwan, who studied in NYC, proudly walks against pedestrian red lights. She claimed this is the better way because this is the New York way.

I cannot fathom her logic.