WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Jaywalking 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:06.240 Hey, I'm welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:08.879 there's Chuck, and Jerry's even here. Dave's not no, and 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.440 even knows where Dave is right now. But Jerry's here 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.120 and that's good. And this is short stuff about jaywalking. 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.759 J Yeah, I think I want to start this out 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:22.640 by saying that our mutual friend who shot stuff you 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.800 know TV shows the DP, Scott Ippolito, when we lived 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.200 in l A together, he got a j walking ticket 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.800 one day. Man, that is so Scott. And I was like, 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.319 what they do that? And he said they do that. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.360 I could see Scott's face when he actually got a ticket, 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:40.080 and it was sinking in that he was getting a 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.559 ticket for jaywalking. It. It's great, great stuff, man. And 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.200 I think it wasn't even like crossing against the crosswalk sign. 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.920 I think he literally just crossed the street where he 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.200 shouldn't have that. Cops like, I don't like I don't 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.680 like your face. Yeah, he's got a great face too. 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.680 Supposedly That's the thing too that we'll we'll talk about later, 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.240 that jaywalking is not um equitably doled out among the 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:06.000 different different types of people in the United States, which 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.120 is sucky, but at the same time, Chuck Um, we 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.640 should probably start at the beginning of jaywalking because jaywalking 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.160 hasn't always been around, because cars haven't always been around, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:23.000 and jaywalking doesn't really exist without the context of cars. 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:28.200 Because thanks to a really interesting Vox article that we found, um, 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:32.400 it turns out the automobile industry is behind the creation 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.920 and criminalization of the concept of jaywalking. Before it was 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.120 just here's the street, ere a pedestrian, which means you 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.360 basically on the street, go ahead and cross wherever you want. Yeah. 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:44.520 So shout out to Box and our old pals from 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.080 how Stuff Works dot com for this stuff. What I 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:52.760 couldn't derive from the Vox article, Well, let's just go 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.600 ahead and say this. The term jay back then was 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:58.080 a name if you were like a rube or a 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.000 nudge or a hick. You be called a j A 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:02.920 lot of times. It was a name for somebody like that. 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:10.200 It was very derogatory. You also wanted jay, I like that, 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.440 but people were called ja drivers or they were known 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:21.400 as jay driving. But it seemed like Vox had it 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.160 the other way around, and that jay driving came about 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:26.919 after the term jaywalking, and I couldn't figure out which 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.359 it was. I couldn't either, but they were so very 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.960 close that they were um pretty much created almost at 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.640 the same time, but they were both born. It seems 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:43.239 like out of this conflict between automotive drivers car drivers 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:46.840 we might call them today, and pedestrians, people who are 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.320 just walking around because, like I was saying before, the 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.959 street belonged to everybody and they were like corse drawn 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.280 carriages and all that stuff. But for the most part, 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.760 people were on foot and the first people who were 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:03.080 driving cars were super rich um uh gad flies basically 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.400 like f Scott Fitzgerald types. We're the ones who were 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:10.799 driving automotives at the at first. And so there was 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.520 certainly class resentment out of the out of the gate, 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:15.760 but there was also more than anything, resentment for people 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.960 who were just zipping through, um the streets that were 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.200 crowded with people, including children playing in the street, because 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:24.560 that was a normal thing to do um. And so 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.960 there was a tension almost out of the gate between 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.280 drivers and pedestrians. Yeah. I mean the drivers essentially, we're like, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.520 get off the road, and the walkers were like, wait 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.400 a minute, the roads belonged to us, and they said no, 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.880 that's why we started building sidewalks and the walkers were like, 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.120 what you want us to walk over there on that 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.880 little four foot span When we lived our whole life 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.040 in the streets, there's cracks there that I can't step on. 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:53.400 The term ja driving I think it may have been 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:58.360 first though, because this was like the nineteen twenties when 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.240 the automobile really started to come on the scene and 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:05.280 started like making a legit claim to the streets. Uh. 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.280 And it looks like jay driving was in an actual 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:12.680 newspaper in nineteen o five and the Kansas Junction City 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.920 Union and the Kansas City Star talked about jay driving, 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:17.840 So I think that may have been first. And this 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.320 was driving on the wrong side of the road. And 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:24.039 then initially jay walking met just being rude on the 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.440 sidewalk and like not I don't know if it was 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.720 right or left base, but basically walking in a way 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.599 that wasn't appropriate on the sidewalk. Yeah, that's the house 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.120 stuff works spiel. If you read that Vox article, it's 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.560 basically saying that, um, jay walkers were called that for 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.040 getting in the way of cars. It was derogatory term 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:43.960 for people who didn't know better stay out of these 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:49.880 new awesome um cars way, and then in response people 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.680 called jay like people driving cars jay drivers because they 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.360 didn't they it was just a retaliatory term from what 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.880 I could tell. So this shall be known henceforth as 0:04:59.880 --> 0:05:05.080 the Great House Stuff Works Fox. Yeah, exactly between Jay 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:09.240 how Stuff Works and jay vox. But the long and 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.240 the short of it is that once this started to 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:15.479 be a thing, the automobile industry got involved, and their 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:19.000 lobby and their money got involved, and they got together 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:23.560 with local police forces and they started initially like a 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.880 shame campaign. Yeah, didn't they to like shame people that 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.640 were jaywalking. Yeah. There's apparently the National Automobile Chamber of 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.880 Commerce who had the bright idea of creating a free 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.560 wire service for local journalists where the journalist would send 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.880 in the details of like a of a of a 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.239 like a car accidentally a pedestrian hit by a car, 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.880 and the the um wire service would send them back 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:50.960 a full article. Go ahead and run it. You can 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.080 put your name on it if you want, but it 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:55.760 would put the onus on the pedestrians. It would talk 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:57.919 about how the pedestrian was a dummy for not getting 0:05:57.920 --> 0:05:59.120 out of the way of the car. It was the 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.000 pedestrians fall and they were like, that was the level 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:07.240 of like underhandedness that this campaign was taking. Yeah, And 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:09.800 as far as the shame campaign, it was literally on 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.920 the streets, like they would advise police officers to shout 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.440 them down, to blow their whistles at them, and like 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.760 call attention to them. There were like legit, you know, 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.880 nineteen forties fifties style propaganda posters about jaywalking that they 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.240 would put up, and all of a sudden, the pedestrian 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:31.280 was was, you know, persona non grata in the United States. Yeah, 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.680 and then in very short order they started making crosswalks, 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.200 and then in very short order after that, there were 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:39.640 laws that were past that said this is where the 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.280 only place you can cross the street and be within 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.400 the letter of the law. And as a result, cars 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.000 came to dominate streets for the first time ever pretty 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.760 quickly after they were invented and introduced. And I say 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.600 we take a break and then talk about those laws 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:57.800 that kind of came up as a result of that 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.960 automotive industry lobbying. Let's do it. Well, now we're on 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.359 the road, driving in your truck. Want to learn a 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.840 thing or two from Josh can Chuck stuff you should know, 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:30.200 all right, all right, So back in Herbert Hoover apparently, 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:32.360 who was the Commerce secretary at the time before he 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:37.000 was president, he wrote up a uniform law that that 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:42.440 guided pedestrian um behavior in the hopes that everybody would 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.360 just adopt this law and it would make sense. But 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:48.400 instead a patchwork of not just state laws but municipal 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.840 laws arose. So depending on where you are in the country, 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.720 the law is going to be radically different from somewhere 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.600 else in the country about whether you're in the writer 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.280 or the long for getting hit by that car. Yeah, 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.120 I mean that's still this thing today, Like it depends 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.800 on what city you're in, and this is you know, 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:12.480 like you said, even sometimes small towns and municipalities, I'll 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.640 do it up to big cities there are like in 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.800 New York, it's people jaywalk. That's the only way you 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:20.400 can get anywhere in New York is if you just 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.240 kind of do your own thing. And I've never seen 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.440 anyone get busted for it. It seems like that it's 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:29.840 acceptable to do there. Um. In Los Angeles, it's weird, 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.800 like people will will stop and if there's no cars coming, 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.160 they will sit there. They will stand there and wait 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.679 at a crosswalk crosswalk until it turns. Um. It's much 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:45.559 less pedestrian friendly than New York is, obviously, But depending 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.400 on where you are, it's either a faux pot to 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.720 do it or it's downright illegal. Uh. If you're talking 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:55.280 right of way, it's anybody's guests sometimes who technically legally 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.040 has the right of way. Uh. There's an old saying 0:08:58.040 --> 0:08:59.920 that the right of way is something you give, not take. 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.680 Especially when you're in a car and someone's walking. I 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.360 think you should always sort of be nice and defer 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.839 to the person walking right, don't you think? Yeah, of course, 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.120 I mean. And the overall the overall points of this 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.760 is that if you're driving a car, you're not really 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.600 in any sort of danger of being harmed yourself if 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.040 you get in an accident with the pedestrian. But a 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:24.920 pedestrian is in a lot of danger for getting hit 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.240 by a car. And so you, as the operator of 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.280 the car, have a responsibility to look out for pedestrians. 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.120 And then conversely, you as a pedestrian, just for out 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:38.840 of a sense of self preservation, have a responsibility not 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:40.920 just walk in front of cars and presume they're going 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.360 to stop. Yeah, because here's a stat three percent of 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:50.600 traffic incidents involved pedestrians, but fourteen percent of traffic deaths 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.840 are pedestrians, and I think seventy of those fatalities are 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.240 outside of intersections, just people crossing the street or whatever 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:03.479 wherever they want. Yeah, so that the National Highway Transportation 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:09.000 Safety Administration put together a publication called Pedestrians Safety Enforcement 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.880 Operations and You Colan and how to Guide. I added 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.959 the and you part, okay, and um. They basically it's 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.239 instructs cops to just go ahead and cite um, everybody, 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.679 cite the driver and the pedestrian if there's any kind 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.439 of accident. But they recommend um really bringing the hammer 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.280 down on drivers because they're the ones who who are 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.520 going to cause the most damage. So they really need 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.120 to be taught to be on the lookout for pedestrians, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.640 even if the car has the right of way. The 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.760 This House Stuff Works article makes a really great point, Um, 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.800 regardless of any local laws of who's right or who's wrong, 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.880 if you're a driver and you hit a pedestrian, it 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:50.760 doesn't matter whether you're in the right or wrong. You 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.360 just hit somebody and maybe seriously injured or maybe even 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.440 killed them, and that's a life changing event. So forget 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.640 the laws. Just look out for pedestrians at all times. 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:02.719 Maybe if you actually do hit somebody, you can look 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:04.760 into local laws to see what the deal is or 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.040 have your lawyer do it. But up to that point, 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.400 you should be looking out for pedestrians. And if you're 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.800 a pedestrians, you should never, ever, in a million years, 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.480 ever be looking at your cell phone when you stop 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.160 off of a curb and cross the street. It is 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.120 one of the dumbest, most easily avoidable things that you 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.360 can do, and yet it happens everywhere. Yeah there, I 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.760 mean there are towns that have and cities have I 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.679 think distracted pedestrian laws on the books for stuff just 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:33.920 like that, right, Yeah, And I also want to put 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:39.120 in two cents for um enforcing distracted driver's laws. Like 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.000 just seeing people driving around looking at their phone is 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:44.920 it makes me crazy. It makes my my blood boil, 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.920 Like if blood could boil, I would say it literally 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.640 makes my blood boil. Speeding down the highway just staring 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:55.199 into their lap, Oh my god, unbelievable. Yeah, or like 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:57.680 they'll drop down all of a sudden from eighty to 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.360 like sixty because they're checking their phone now and they're 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.920 not really paying attention. But yeah, no matter how you're 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.360 doing it, it's it's just wrong, wrong, wrong, You're wrong, 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:07.960 You're wrong. Yeah. I used to give a nice little 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.000 friendly tap at someone in front of me at a 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.200 red light, head and gone yet on the horn, the horn. 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.719 I say, you know, I'm not the bumper. But now 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:18.440 when I see the head down and there on the phone, 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:20.600 I just I lay on it. I don't care. Yeah, 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.520 I'm with you. Uh. I got one more quick story, 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.080 if I may to illustrate yielding to pedestrians. It was 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.520 Christmas Eve this year and I was coming down McClendon 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:33.440 through the neighborhoods of Atlanta toward Candler Park, and there's 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.480 kind of a funky pedestrian crossing there that's a little 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.920 it's not very intuitive, and there was a legit elderly couple, 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.880 like maybe in their eighties, even sort of like should 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:44.839 I go? Should I not? And they shouldn't have, but 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.200 I could tell that they were confused, so I stopped 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.240 and they started to go, and a guy coming from 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:54.000 the other direction laid on his horn and was like 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.920 screaming and pointing up at the sign saying they shouldn't 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.679 be walking. As he went by on Christmas Eve, this 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:04.320 elderly couple, and he was like, it didn't look like 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:05.880 some young jerk, he was like some middle aged guy. 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.640 I think he had a normal middle aged passenger. Like 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.679 you look out for them, Yeah, they're the worst. Actually, yeah, 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:14.080 those are the ones you have to look out for 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.079 the most. Oh, it just made me so mad. I 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:18.520 couldn't believe that this guy just blew through there, Like 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.080 what it would have cost him to just let this 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.880 whole couple pass. I know, and you see that so much. 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.880 Everybody's so keyed up these days, but it seems like 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:31.200 middle are the most keyed up of all its stuff. 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:33.319 You know, it's a time to be keyed up, which 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:35.160 also means it's a time to be kinder than ever. 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.560 You know. Yeah, that's good advice. Ch alrighty, I'm done 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.559 half the soapbox. I've got one more thing. Apparently there 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:45.000 was a two twelve study um that looked at how 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:49.400 jaywalking is enforced among races, and depending on the town 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.840 you're in, Uh, you're much likelier to be cited for 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.640 jaywalking if you're a person or color of color Champagne 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.200 or Band of Illinois is the one that's usually trotted 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:04.160 out as a UM as the the shameful UM poster 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:09.439 child for this. But the people back in two thousand 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.680 twelve who were cited for jaywalking we're black, despite only 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.320 twelve point four percent of the population of Champagne or Band, 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:20.440 Illinois being black. And it's not just them. There's like 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.840 this happens in towns all over the country. But it's um. 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.400 It's like bad enough to get a ticket for jaywalking, 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.920 but if if it's not being doled out evenly, then 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.640 that is even worse. You know, agreed, be careful out there, 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.880 be nice to people. That's all I got. I think 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.080 that's good. Well, then, uh, that means everybody's short stuff 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:44.720 is out. Stuff you should Know is a production of 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:48.200 iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.200 i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:52.240 to your favorite shows.