{"id":74866,"date":"2025-02-08T02:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T02:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/legal\/nyc-kills-the-jaywalking-law\/"},"modified":"2025-02-08T02:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T02:30:11","slug":"nyc-kills-the-jaywalking-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=74866","title":{"rendered":"NYC Kills the Jaywalking Law"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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The concept of jaywalking in New York City has always been a joke. It was, until yesterday, illegal. But everyone did it. Even if a cop was standing right in front of you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

New Yorkers always valued their \u201cright\u201d to walk where they wanted, as Dustin Hoffman famously yelled in Midnight Cowboy: \u201cHey, \u201cI\u2019m walkin\u2019 here<\/a>!\u201d<\/p>\n

That freedom to walk wherever we wanted, however didn\u2019t seem apply to everyone. It seems that New York cops were still writing tickets for Blacks and Latinos, who received 92% of the tickets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An unenforced law for a white guy like me isn\u2019t the same as an unenforced law for others. In other words, jaywalking was a pretext for cops to stop someone they didn\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

So, now that it\u2019s gone, how does that affect New York\u2019s personal injury law? Does this mean pedestrians can wander the streets aimlessly with their schnozz buried in their phones?<\/p>\n

Yes. But. And the \u201cbut\u201d part is that it will not magically grant them immunity for their own negligence. Yes, you can step out between cars without looking. You won\u2019t get a ticket. But you can still be held liable if a car slams into you.<\/p>\n

Comparative negligence \u2014 that part of the law that says fault isn\u2019t always 100% this way or that \u2014 will not evaporate. A pedestrian must still yield the right of way outside of a crosswalk<\/a>. A jury can (and will) still apportion fault against a pedestrian if given just a smidgen of a chance.<\/p>\n

The only real difference is that if a pedestrian was actually given a ticket in the past after a collision, an almost unheard of situation in NYC, a guilty finding for violating a law might would liability against that person as a matter of law, and a negative inference if it is city ordinance. Since that rarely happened, it won\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n

A last thing on this short post as I come out of hibernation \u2014 just because you have the right to do something stupid doesn\u2019t mean you should. Even if you have the right of way. As I noted a few years ago in a post about the difference between fault and safety<\/a>, I remembered a little something from a book on Tombstone Humor that I read decades ago:<\/p>\n

\n

Here lies the body of John McCray,<\/p>\n

He died defending his right of way.<\/p>\n

He had the light, He had some pluck,<\/p>\n

But the other fellow had the truck.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n<\/blockquote><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The concept of jaywalking in New York City has always been a joke. It was, until yesterday, illegal. But everyone did it. Even if a cop was standing right in front of you. 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