Jaywalking has been in the news. I must admit that when I first came across the word many years back I didn't know what it meant.An American somewhere on the net gives a definition: For those of you from across the pond, "jaywalking" is crossing a street outside the lines of a crosswalk or when the light in the direction you are heading is red. (I know, what's a crosswalk? A place where you cross I guess). A British historian at a conference in Atlanta has got himself in the news by jaywalking. See story eg here. See pictures here.
I first heard the word when reading about the great J Gresham Machen, theologian and founder of Westminster Seminary who opposed the imposition of laws against it in Philadelphia. This paragraph from an article by D G Hart here tells you all you need to know:
Machen also expressed libertarian convictions when he spoke outwriting letters to local newspapers and testifying before the city council against Philadelphia's jaywalking laws. While he hated to see people taking foolish chances on the street and believed that outrageous and unreasonable behavior by pedestrians which obstructed traffic should result in fines, Machen was "dead opposed to subjecting a whole city, because of these comparatively few incautious people to a treadmill regime like that which prevails in Western cities." Such laws prevented people from the "best and simplest pleasure a man can have," namely, walking, and encouraged drivers to think of city streets as highways which should remain free and clear of pedestrians.
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