The Commie Authoritarian deBlasio is Worse Than Giuliani...

at least when it comes to jaywalking.

Salon reports:

 In 1998, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani instituted a citywide crackdown on the practice of jaywalking. The fine for walking outside of designated crosswalks was raised from a token $2 fine to a heftier $50 penalty. This past year, under the stewardship of Mayor Bill de Blasio, that fine was once again raised, this time to $250.

These guys are really crazed authoritarians and statists. Jayuwalking should not be illegal in the first place (even on fundamental utilitarian grounds).  AS always, there is a story filled with dfifferent groups attempting to influence government:

Salon informs:

One of the earliest references to the practice is in an article in the Chicago Tribune: “chauffeurs assert with some bitterness that their ‘joy riding’ would harm nobody if there were not so much jay walking” (April 7, 1909). The quote reflects a mind-set of entitlement among the motorist class, a readiness to allocate blame to the lowest tier of traveler. In early America “jay” was a pejorative used to denote a rube or rustic, someone unacquainted with the niceties of urban refinement. To be called a jay was to have called into question your very sense of belonging, your right to exist within the city proper....

In 1923, Cincinnati residents pursued an ordinance that would require motorists to outfit their cars with mechanical devices called governors. The governors would switch off car engines if vehicles exceeded speeds of 25 miles per hour. Local automobile dealers mobilized to strike down the measure. Over the next decade the auto industry pursued aggressive action to take sole possession of public roads and, in turn, reshape the conversation around cars. The American Automobile Association, or AAA, sponsored safety campaigns in schools, educating students on the dangers of crossing the street in unmarked zones. Boy Scouts handed out cards to pedestrians, warning them against the practice of jaywalking. Mock trials were conducted in public settings to shame or ridicule offenders. The National Automobile Chamber of Commerce persuaded politicians and journalists to shill for their cause. The Packard Motor Car Co. went so far as to construct tombstones engraved with the name Mr. J. Walker. In Buffalo, beachgoers were treated to a public performance by the National Safety Council, in which a jaywalker was arrested, handcuffed and fitted with a sandwich board that read “I am a jaywalker,” and then ushered into a police wagon plastered with anti-pedestrian slogans. (“Hell is paved with good intentions, but why crowd the place? Don’t jaywalk.”) By the 1930s, jaywalking had been adopted as common law in most major municipalities. The term was near ubiquitous, and opposition to the automobile had softened to scarcely a whisper...

The criminalization of jaywalking may be in part justified if crosswalks were in fact safer, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. Crosswalks that aren’t supported by traffic lights or stop signs are no safer than unmarked zones. One study published in Transportation Research Board of the National Academies found that the risk of injury inside the painted lines was the same as it was outside of them. On roadways with multiple lanes and high-volume traffic the crosswalk proved the more precarious option.

-RW