While searching information for road safety for a school assignment, you find this post on a weblog. Read the post carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Jaywalking
The origins of jaywalking, the illegal crossing of a roadway by pedestrian, lie in a propaganda campaign by the motor industry in the early 1990s. The word “jaywalker” was first used to describe someone from the countryside who wasn’t accustomed to the rules of the road for pedestrian in the city, so would attempt to cross the road anywhere. In 1913, a department store in New York hired a Santa Claus, who stood on the sidewalk bellowing at people who didn’t cross the road properly and calling them jaywalkers.
The idea of being fined for crossing the road at undesignated areas or without regard for traffic regulations can confuse foreign visitors to the US. The UK, Norway and France are among the many developed countries where jaywalking is not an offence, but their rate of pedestrian injuries are lower than those of the US. However, a handful of countries have followed the lead of the US and imposed anti-jaywalking measures. Police in China, for example, began fining jaywalkers in 2013, and in Singapore, jaywalking can lead to a $1000 fine or a three-month jail term.
In the US, jaywalking can result in a fine ranging from $190 to $250. As in most countries with anti-jaywalking legislation, enforcement of the law here is sporadic, often only triggered by repeated complaints from drivers in certain areas. But jaywalking has been illegal in the US for many decades. According to Jacob Rath, a history professor at University of Virginia, a key moment was in 1929 when a petition was signed by the citizens of Cincinnati to limit the stop speed of cars to 25mph. Though the petition failed, car makers scrambled to shift the blame for pedestrian casualties from motorists to pedestrians. Soon, he adds, they also started influencing school safety education by stressing that “streets are for cars, not for children”. As a result, anti-jaywalking laws were adopted in many cities and had become the norm by the end of 1930s.
In the decades that followed, the overriding goal of city planners and engineers was to allow traffic to circulate unhindered. “For years, pedestrians were essentially written out of the equation when it came to designing streets,” says Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic – Why we drive the way we do. “They didn’t even appear in early computer models, and when they did, it was largely for their role in blocking vehicle traffic”. This has made US cities unusually hostile to pedestrians,” says Vanderbilt. Jaywalking has become an “often misunderstood umbrella term”, covering many situations in which the pedestrians should, indeed, have the right of way.
In the US, resistance to anti-jaywalking legislation is growing. When the Los Angeles Police Department recently advertised an anti-jaywalking campaign on its Facebook page, respondents accused the police of simply seeking an easy source of revenue. And in New York, in its effort to crack down on jaywalking, the mayor’s office has come up against opposition from voters and police officers. Advocates of jaywalking say careless drives, not pedestrian, are most often to blame for motorist-pedestrian accidents, pedestrian deaths and injuries, and that there is no evidence to prove that anti-jaywalking campaigns are effective. They believe that there is too little experimentation with project that aim to make US cities more pedestrian-friendly, such as increasing motorists’ awareness of pedestrian and reducing traffic speed in urban areas.
Leave your comment:
Very interesting post about jaywalking, but your post is wrong when it states that “it is not an offence in the UK”. Jaywalking is an offence in Northern Ireland (part of the UK), although, fortunately, traffic officers rarely enforce the law. But if and when they do, can result in either written warning or a £30 fine.
Which of the following is closest in meaning to 'written out of the equation' in paragraph 4?
A.frustrated
B.disregarded
C.deceived
D.reprimanded
