Originally Posted by
CliffordK
As far as I can tell, Jaywalking is not illegal here, but one must cross a street in a safe manner.
And that is the goal of all the cross walks. Make safe street crossing for pedestrians. By the 1920's vehicle speeds were increasing, and no doubt there were more vehicle/pedestrian incidents. And thus the birth of crosswalks and jaywalking regulations.
Wrong. The goal was to make travel faster and more convenient for motorists. Make the pedestrians and cyclists stay away from the cars so that motorists don't have to slow down and go around them. And especially, remove the legal liability for collisions from the motorists and pin legal blame on peds and cyclists.
Evidence is that these jay-walk laws were promoted and lobbied by motoring organizations like AAA, not by pedestrian and bicycling organizations.