[pjc50]

"Jaywalking" is one of those things that's uniquely American. Most other countries have realized that the risk of being hit by a car is its own deterrent. Or restrict the legal ban on crossing to highways, not all streets.

The UK Highway Code has a RFC-like use of MUST/SHOULD; MUST parts are legally binding, the parts relating to pedestrians are SHOULD.

[kuschku]

The German regulation is also really interesting:

Jaywalking is only illegal if there's a crossing less than 50m away. (And even then it's only a misdemeanor, not a crime).

That also means that city planners have to balance between people jaywalking, putting crossings everywhere, and how crossings slow down traffic.

And every time a car makes a turn, pedestrians automatically have priority. Which creates an implicit zebra crossing.

The only roads exempt from this are autobahn/motorways. These are by law prohibited from having direct access to anything.

That's IMO also a way for the US to get out of its current situation. Set up a rule like that, with a large distance at the beginning, and slowly reduce it over the next few years, forcing local planners to introduce additional crossings, which also reduces through traffic. The separation of streets vs autobahn also mostly prevents stroads.

[iggldiggl]

> And every time a car makes a turn, pedestrians automatically have priority. Which creates an implicit zebra crossing.

Only for turning traffic, though, i.e. as a pedestrian you still need to yield to traffic coming from the side street. There was some talk of having pedestrians participate more fully in right-of-way-rules, too, i.e. if the side street has a yield/stop sign, traffic would have to yield to crossing pedestrians, too, but so far that idea didn't get anywhere.

[fc417fc802]

I believe most jurisdictions in the US have largely the same framework. At least everywhere I've lived all street corners were implicit pedestrian crossings with a legal requirement (often blatantly ignored) that vehicles yield. Similarly jaywalking is a misdemeanor and only applies within a certain distance of a crossing.

The only situations where it's enforced (from what I've seen so obviously biased) is major highways, city streets with dense traffic and a marked crossing within half a block, and when they want to search someone for contraband. In the latter case it's just an excuse to stop and harass you in the hopes they will manage to generate sufficient articulable suspicion to justify a search.