“A ‘jay’ was a hayseed, out of place in the city; a jaywalker was someone who did not know how to walk in a city. Originally the term applied as much or more to pedestrians who obstructed the path of other pedestrians—by failing, for example, to keep to the right on the sidewalk. As autos grew common on city streets, jaywalkers were more often pedestrians oblivious to the danger of city motor traffic… ‘Jaywalker’ carried the sting of ridicule, and many objected to branding independent-minded pedestrians with the term. In 1915 New York’s police commissioner, Arthur Woods, attempted to use it to describe anyone who crossed the street at mid-block. The New York Times objected, calling the word ‘highly opprobrious’ and ‘a truly shocking name.’ Any attempt to arrest pedestrians would be ‘silly and intolerable.’ [...] In 1921 a National Safety Council member from Baltimore confessed to his colleagues that, at least in pedestrian control… ‘You are affecting personal liberty when you keep people from crossing the streets at certain places.’ [...] The cleverest anti-jaywalking publicity effort was in Detroit in 1922, where the Packard Motor Car Company exploited the new fashion for monuments to traffic fatalities. Packard built an oversized imitation tombstone that closely resembled the monument to the innocent child victims of accidents in Baltimore. But Packard’s tombstone redirected blame to the victims. It was marked ‘Erected to the Memory of Mr. J. Walker: He Stepped from the Curb Without Looking.’ ” — Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic (MIT, 2008), pp. 72-77

Personally, I think that a balance between cars and non-motorized modes of transport needs to be found. When this balance is disrupted, that is when one finds more aggressive behaviour. I would say that Montreal might be close to the ‘tipping point’ in that respect – as congestion increases, car drivers seem to be becoming much more aggressive over the last few years.

On another note, most pedestrian accidents actually occur at intersections! And it is by no means obvious who was at fault in many cases. People who cross mid-block are much more aware of their surroundings and are far less likely to be caught off-guard. On the other hand, the severity of an injury increases exponentially with the speed of the contact! A car going 10 kph and hitting someone while making a turn is not likely to kill someone, whereas a direct blow from a car going 50-60 kph (ie a mid-block accident) could quite possibly be fatal.

The worst place I’ve ever been for this is Copenhagen, where I was scolded by other pedestrians on several occasions for jaywalking. People will wait for the pedestrian light to change even if there is no car in sight. It’s infuriating. Despite this slight shortcoming, I consider the Danes to have an exemplary culture and civilization.

In the same vein, I have difficulty understanding cars who will wait for the light to turn green when there are no vehicles or pedestrians in sight for miles. I also don’t understand why we subject cyclists to the same driving laws as cars when it is a more flexible form of transport that is not life-threatening to pedestrians–even in “civilized” Montreal, I met some right sticklers who refused to mind their own business as I cycled against traffic, on the sidewalk in a busy street, etc. I consider this to be the same kind of behaviour as those who are jaywalker-intolerant.

Can’t we all be a little less Danish when it comes to these things (and a little more Danish when it comes to other things)?

London is a jaywalker’s paradise. Jaywalking is perfectly legal in the UK — as long as there are no cars coming, you are allowed to cross the street — and people jaywalk there like mad. Nobody hesitates to cross against the light (even in Montreal, there are always a handful of people who insist on waiting for the green) and there are always many people crossing mid-block.