Question: Regarding Tuesday’s Auwe (https://808ne.ws/3UHhd2A), of course some pedestrians are out of line, but so are some drivers, and they’re the ones with the lethal weapons. Most pedestrians know how to cross the street safely and are not going to risk their own lives. The “Freedom to Walk” bill was common sense.
Q: Regarding jaywalking, what would that bill even have done because I see people jaywalking all the time. Does anyone ever get a ticket?
Answer: Most public testimony submitted online supported Senate Bill 2630, also known as the “freedom to walk” or “right to walk” bill, but the measure was opposed by key law enforcement, including the Honolulu Police Department. Versions passed in the Senate and the House, but differences were not resolved for final passage.
As for the second reader’s questions, we’ll summarize the bill below, and yes, thousands of people in Hawaii are ticketed each year, at rates higher than other states, according to a report by the Hawai‘i Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice.
From 2018 to 2023, 30,168 jaywalking citations were issued in Hawaii, a figure that does not include sealed cases or juvenile records, the report said. The highest number (8,201) were issued in 2018, it said. The vast majority of tickets were issued in urban Honolulu, from Kalihi to Kaimuki.
Find the full report on the Appleseed website, https://hiappleseed.org. It traces the rise of jaywalking laws to the 1920s as the nascent automobile industry sought to avoid blame for rising traffic fatalities and concludes that jaywalking laws have not made pedestrians safer, are costly to enforce (78% of Hawaii tickets went unpaid), and disproportionately punish black and brown pedestrians.
As for your observation, perhaps some of the people you saw weren’t crossing illegally. In testimony opposed to Senate Bill 2630, the state Department of Transportation said pedestrians already have options. In general, state law allows “pedestrians to cross a roadway at any location except between adjacent signalized intersections. In addition, unmarked crosswalks exist at every intersection if marked crosswalks are not provided,” it said.
Had it passed and been signed into law, SB 2630, SD1, HD2, would have allowed pedestrians to cross the street contrary to HRS sections 291C-33, 291C-71, 291C-72, 291C-73, and 291C-75, “unless a reasonably careful pedestrian would determine that acting contrary to those sections would result in a collision with a moving vehicle or result in a moving vehicle slowing or stopping in any fashion.”
>> 291C-33: Requires pedestrians to follow “walk” and “don’t walk” signals and countdown timers at intersections that have them.
>> 291C-71: Subjects pedestrians to traffic and pedestrian-control signals as spelled out in 291C-32 and 291C-33.
>> 291C-72: Explains pedestrians’ right-of-way in crosswalks.
>> 291C-73: Says pedestrians crossing outside a crosswalk (marked or unmarked) shall yield to vehicles. This section also says that “between adjacent intersections at which traffic-control signals are in operation, pedestrians shall not cross at any place except in a marked crosswalk” and that no pedestrian shall cross an intersection diagonally “unless authorized by official traffic-control devices.”
>> 291C-75: Says “pedestrians shall move, whenever practicable, upon the right half of crosswalks.”
Mahalo
I want to say a mahalo in advance to everyone who will help make sure that all the U.S. veterans who died serving their country will be honored on Memorial Day. As we’ve aged, we’ve had to stop going to the ceremonies and lei-making events and I’m glad the younger generations are continuing the traditions. — A reader
Write to Kokua Line at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-500, Honolulu, HI 96813; call 808-529-4773; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
