Like you I have been doing that for years, here it has been the usual for every body without any kind
of punishment by the law.
Even now it is common to look both sides of the street and if you are not in company of children
(to not give them a bad example) and not any car are going you may cross the street without
waiting for the green light or in the middle of the street where there is not a cross signal on the
floor. We call “pasos de cebra” to this signals and sometimes even cars doesn´t respect them.
Always careful despite you are crossing the street by the cross-walk (paso de cebra) as lot of cars
doesn´t let you cross safely.

Jaywalking is an absolute new term for me by all means. Thank´s a lot Warren as it is the rule
that you always illustrate us with new vocabulary and information.
Thanks again dear teacher.

emiliano

Thank you very much indeed for providing me a chance to learn something so important in my life.

You see, I did not know the term ‘jaywalk’ until you tell us about it in the article above.

English Café 51 was a few years back and I had not got that far yet.

Wikipedia says “jaywalking is an informal term commonly used in North America to refer to illegal or reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway”. If it is an informal term, what is the formal term for jaywalking?

Why did I say it was very important in my life?

I lived in England for quite a long time and I have been driving for so many years, yet I never knew the word ‘jaywalking’.

I was surprised and so I did a lot of search about jaywalking. I found that it was not illegal to jaywalk in England. Not at all!

I found an article on Friday, 12 January 2007 in “news.bbc.co.uk” with a title: “What every Brit should know about jaywalking”.

It says: “In the UK no one would bat an eyelid. In Atlanta, you could be wrestled to the ground”.

It also claims to be “a cautionary tale for any traveller – distinguished historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto tried to cross the road while in Atlanta for the conference of the American Historical Association, only to find himself in handcuffs and surrounded by armed police”.

It is interesting for me to read comments from people from different parts of the world wrote about their own experiences with jaywalking.

One said: “In the US, enforcement of jaywalking laws – and customs – can vary greatly, depending on the city and region. Visit NYC and you’ll see that pedestrians can cross anywhere at anytime, regardless of traffic volume. Traffic tickets, forget jail, are as rare as the dodo bird. Travel 200 miles to Washington DC, however, and you’ll find that stepping off the curb at an intersection, not to mention in the middle of a street, can result in honking and dirty stares from drivers”.

Hong Kong is very different from Atlanta. We do not have so many police officers to look after just one jaywalkers.

They do catch jaywalkers in Hong Kong, and the maximum fine is 2,000 Hong Kong dollars for jaywalking.

The government uses a lot of guard rails and pedestrian barriers to separate pedestrian traffic from vehicular traffic where traffic is heavy. The guard rails lead pedestrians to crossings, and no one should climb over the rails or barriers.

In fact, in less commercialized parts of Hong Kong, many people jaywalk. I am guilty of jaywalking as well. Every time I jaywalk together with many jaywalkers and we were quite sure there was not even a single policeman around and we all know about the area very well so that it is quite safe to do that.

Nevertheless, I think I should stop doing that from now on.

Thanks again, Warren, good educational topic.

Best Regards

Betty

Here in Catalonia jaywalkers are not guilty in case they don’t use the cross-walking places. In fact even though we have these cross-walking places and traffic signals with the green, amber and red colors they are not guilty if they cross the street with the traffic signal in red.

We have driving laws that are very favorable for pedestrians and for jaywalkers as well.

In fact I heard about pedestrians that on purpose even throw themselves against cars in order to ask for indemnities.

Bye,

Here in Italy there is no laws about jaywalking! However, I saw police officers fined people for it! Maybe they caused cars accident or something!!
I also saw people crossing railroad track in a train station! This is not allowed here in Italy and it is, of course, very dangerous!!!

Bye!!!

Mario (Rome – Italy)

As a matter of fact, apparently we have jaywalking laws, it’s just that people don’t keep the laws. Jaywalking is more serious in the city downtown than the suburbs.
Even if you want to wait for the signal to turn to green, u will become so susceptible because u found yourself so hard to resist the temptation by seeing others crossing the streets on red light while you still have to wait and remain on the other side till the light changes.

What matters most here is i think that whether you want to be honest to yourself or you don’t care about it.

Thanks

The story never ends here. The needs for vehicles has creeped all over the place from a simple grocery to an emergency 911 call. grocery shopping is a routine experience, yet grocery stores no matter the size never run out of producuts since a 24/7 truck service constantly refreshes the about-to-empty shelves.the rule of thumb says:” An emergency situation needs to be responded within minutes no matter the distance.”
no horse or carriag is able to accomodate it:)

Letters are another point that manifest the importance of vehicles and the over-reliance of toay’s people on cars. People still communicate via letters for both pleasure and business purposes. They use postal services to greet one another ,to receive financial statements ,to get informed about some important, life-altering news like school admissions ,and so on. Letters are in circulation everyday fast and in time and all it happens through vehicles employed by postal
Services in every single country. The circulation would never take place if it weren’t for the employed vehicles.

All in all, today’s life has become possible due to an invention that once demed as a society menace.
So ,let’s keep an open mind, shall we?

Yours

Knucklehead:))

I was thinking that there are women, especially during the summer, that should get a tiket/fined because they are too attractive \ hot!
That’s not good! I get distracted and that behind the wheel is too dangerous!

It is funny how we change while driving. For instance, I have noticed that I speak by myself!
I bet a penny I am not the only one doing that.

I do not get how you can be fined for Jaywalking, I mean the lazy cop must first get me… and I am a good runner…..

Bye guys! always a pleasure reading your comments.

If you asked me what a street is for, I would clearly tell you that streets are for vehicles – that’s the first thing that would come into my mind I guess.