Posts tagged walking

The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of “jaywalking”

history, roads, cars, walking, public, public-space, crime, shame, lobbying, culture

“In the early days of the automobile, it was drivers’ job to avoid you, not your job to avoid them,” says Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. “But under the new model, streets became a place for cars — and as a pedestrian, it’s your fault if you get hit.” One of the keys to this shift was the creation of the crime of jaywalking.

via http://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history