Jaywalking

Jaywalking is a term commonly used in North America to refer to illegal or reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway. Examples include a pedestrian crossing between intersections without yielding to drivers and starting to cross a crosswalk at a signalized intersection without waiting for a permissive indication to be displayed. In the United States, state statutes generally reflect the Uniform Vehicle Code in requiring drivers to yield the right of way to pedestrians at crosswalks; at other locations, crossing pedestrians are either required to yield to drivers or, under some conditions, are prohibited from crossing.

The United Kingdom does not formally describe priority regulations for drivers and pedestrians at road junctions or other locations, except with respect to marked Zebra, Pelican, and Puffin crossings, where motorists are required to give way to pedestrians under defined conditions. Elsewhere, the Highway Code relies on the expectation that pedestrians in the process of crossing at (unmarked) road junctions receive priority, as a matter of common law.

According to one historian, the earliest known use of the word jaywalker in print was in the Chicago Tribune in 1909. (The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1917.) The term's dissemination was due in part to a deliberate effort by promoters of automobiles, such as local auto clubs and dealers, to redefine streets as places where pedestrians do not belong.