The history of “jaywalking” – a calculated plan to make way for more cars by marginalizing all other road users. People walking across unmarked intersections or even walking across a street between blocks is not a crime (as long as the person does not literally block the flow of traffic) but it’s considered illegal almost everywhere. It wasn’t always a crime…drivers were the menace until the industry highjacked our brains and our language.
Here’s a fun video from Adam Ruins Everything! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AFn7MiJz_s
Turns Out Jaywalking Is A Fake Crime Designed By The Car Industry To Make More People Drive
Cleo Egnal
Updated September 15, 2017
Using money, clever marketing campaigns (which had a lot to do with why we called it ‘jaywalking’), and stories about dead children, car companies were able to pressure cities into putting the onus on pedestrians to not get hit, rather than on drivers for not running over pedestrians.
Read more about it:
https://www.ranker.com/list/jaywalking-crime-created-by-car-industry/cleo-egnal