Comments by "Ralphie Raccoon" (@Croz89) on "Should jaywalking be legal?" video.

  1. Good locations are especially important if you're a child. Drivers cannot see a short child between two parked cars, whereas they could probably see an adult. In the end, it's best to make eye contact with drivers before you cross, if they stop for you.
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  2. Realistically, jaywalking can be replaced with obstructing traffic. If a person deliberately prevents a vehicle from driving along the street at a reasonable speed, either by blocking their path or forcing them to slow to a crawl, that should be obstruction and attract a legal consequence, I think that's totally fair. It also goes without saying the driver is exempt from any civil liability if you are injured or killed by being run over and they could not reasonably have seen you and stopped. In theory they could sue you if you damage their vehicle for being reckless, but I can imagine that's probably not going to be very palatable. In the end, we're not going back to the "slow" streets of the 1920's, at least outside of the busiest urban streets (which could easily be designated as shared spaces or could just be pedestrianised). Cars are too fast now, it's not safe, and while it's certainly reasonable to slow down traffic on some streets it's not something that could be done for every road that pedestrians cross regularly, especially outside of the CBD.
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  3.  @goste4  Even 20mph is too fast to stop if a pedestrian steps right out in front of you. Realistically, you'd have to be limited to nearly the speed of the pedestrian, so walking pace, which would clearly be ridiculous.
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