The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of “jaywalking”
“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.”
Calling a person a jaywalker insinuated being uncultured. But instead, it’s the car’s dominance that contributes to divisions and urban decay.