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Natanya Freidheim/Civil Beat/2018

About the Authors

Jess Thompson

Jess Thompson is the safe, accessible and inclusive mobility program manager with the Hawaii Public Health Institute.

Omar Bird

Omar T. Bird is a critical public social scientist, educator and podcaster. He is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Hawaii Manoa with a focus on medical sociology and social inequality.

Abbey Seitz

Abbey Seitz is the director of transportation equity at Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.


A state Senate bill would prevent pedestrians from being stopped by cops or fined for jaywalking unless there is an immediate danger of a collision.

Hawaii has already seen this year, and many more serious injuries. Local media coverage rarely mentions the drivers鈥 role in the collisions, or the impact of the roadway conditions.

News stories tend to underscore that pedestrians , and typically label the events as 鈥減edestrian crashes.鈥 But these stories leave out what or who crashed into the pedestrians.

In 2019, a team reviewed on crashes involving pedestrians or bicyclists in Hawaii 鈥 69% of the articles did not mention a driver or vehicle.

Only 15% of the articles covered traffic safety solutions. This rhetoric shifts the focus away from addressing the root causes of roadway safety 鈥 distracted driving and poor urban design 鈥 and unfairly places the burden of responsibility and blame on the victims, who are often vulnerable road users.

鈥淰ictim-blaming鈥 rhetoric is tied to jaywalking laws. Although jaywalking is foundational to the way many Americans understand roadway safety, these laws were , following a campaign by the auto industry to shift the blame onto pedestrians for the national rise in traffic fatalities.

Heat map of jaywalking citations on Oahu, 2018. (Hawaii Appleseed)

Auto groups also lobbied police to by whistling or shouting at them.

It is from this shaming strategy that the word jaywalking originates. During this time, the word 鈥渏ay鈥 meant something similar to a 鈥渉ick鈥 鈥 someone who didn鈥檛 know how to walk in a city.

Jaywalking laws have not prevented the nation鈥檚 dramatic rise in traffic violence. Instead, they have created a perception that pedestrians alone are responsible for their safety, deflecting the responsibility that traffic engineers, city planners, and especially motorists have in creating safe streets for all.

Enforcement Doesn鈥檛 Make Us Safer

The number of jaywalking-related citations given in Hawaii is significantly higher than other localities in the U.S.

The , recently published by Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, found that between 2018-2023 in Hawaii, police issued more than 30,000 jaywalking citations, an average of roughly 5,000 citations per year. By comparison, Washington State (population 7.7 million), only gives out about per year.

The Hawaii Appleseed report also found that 78% of these jaywalking tickets are given in densely populated areas of Oahu. Within these areas, certain streets and intersections generate a disproportionately high number of jaywalking citations. For example, in 2018 an estimated 1,316 citations were given along Hotel Street alone (16% of the 2018 total).

Racial information was not obtained by the police for these jaywalking citations. However, data from other localities such as , , and where jaywalking enforcement was studied shows that jaywalking citations are given disproportionately to people of color.

Average annual jaywalking citations per 100,000 people, Hawaii compared with other localities. (Abbey Seitz/Hawaii Appleseed)

While roadway safety is the justification given for jaywalking laws, even the staggeringly high number of jaywalking citations in certain locations do not appear to be linked to reduced traffic violence. While the Honolulu Department of Transportation Services identified some of the jaywalking hot spot locations as high injury locations in their , others (mainly downtown/Chinatown and Waikiki) are safer for pedestrians than many other parts of the island.

Globally, the cities with the lowest traffic death rates do not have any jaywalking laws. And over the past few years, legislation to repeal or reform jaywalking laws has been enacted in Virginia, California, Nevada, Denver, Kansas City, and Anchorage. About now live in places where jaywalking has been decriminalized in some form.

show that there has been little to no change in the number of traffic fatalities in these localities. However, the decriminalization of jaywalking and other minor traffic violations has helped to reduce financial burden on the justice system and has provided opportunities to redirect funds to more constructive traffic safety solutions.

A diverse coalition including Hawaii Appleseed, the Hawaii Public Health Institute, Hawaii Bicycling League, Hawaii Workers Center, Ulupono Initiative, KVIBE-Kalihi Valley Instructional Bike Exchange, the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, the Transportation Equity Hui, Get Fit Kauai and the Rice Street Business Association have joined this national movement by calling on the legislature to pass 鈥 the 鈥淔reedom to Walk鈥 bill.

This bill would prevent pedestrians from being stopped by a law enforcement officer or fined for jaywalking unless there is an immediate danger of a collision with a moving vehicle.

Our policing tactics, media coverage, and government policy must all shift away from blaming pedestrians for vehicle collisions and punishing them with fines. Instead, roadway safety policy should prioritize addressing the underlying systemic issues that lead to traffic violence, and promote a shared responsibility among all road users.

It’s time to stop scapegoating pedestrians and start working toward a future where safe streets are a collective priority.

Community Voices aims to encourage broad discussion on many topics of community interest. It鈥檚 kind of a cross between Letters to the Editor and op-eds. This is your space to talk about important issues or interesting people who are making a difference in our world. Column lengths should be no more than 800 words and we need a photo of the author and a bio. We welcome video commentary and other multimedia formats. Send to news@civilbeat.org. The opinions and information expressed in Community Voices are solely those of the authors and not Civil Beat.


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About the Authors

Jess Thompson

Jess Thompson is the safe, accessible and inclusive mobility program manager with the Hawaii Public Health Institute.

Omar Bird

Omar T. Bird is a critical public social scientist, educator and podcaster. He is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Hawaii Manoa with a focus on medical sociology and social inequality.

Abbey Seitz

Abbey Seitz is the director of transportation equity at Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.


Latest Comments (0)

I knew a guy and I'm being polite by saying "guy", that got hit by a car using the crosswalk. The driver of the car ran the red light. Almost one year later the same "guy" I knew got hit again in the same exact crosswalk. I asked him when the light said walk did he look both ways or just assumed it was safe? His answer was that he assumed it was safe. Look both ways before crossing people.

Da329Guys · 10 months ago

There's two sides to this. I live in Kaimuki and am terrified of hitting someone at night who decides to suddenly jaywalk wearing all black and no safety light. Or someone who is riding their bicycle on the wrong side of the street at night, dark clothes, no light. Or a person who decides to suddenly push their shopping cart across the street, oblivious to any traffic. Or kids who play in the park and run across the street without looking. If I were to hit someone, I would be traumatized and probably go to jail. Honolulu is too crowded now for people to not take SOME measures to be safe. And this includes the danger of high vehicles who have headlights that temporarily blind drivers of oncoming cars. How did the industry get away with that one? I feel for families who have lost someone to careless and/or impaired drivers. That is an outrage. But accidents are not always just the driver's fault.

fiona · 10 months ago

The mentality has to change so that drivers don芒聙聶t continue to believe that they have primary rights on the roads. Daily I observe drivers who do not stop for pedestrians waiting in marked crosswalks,or even slow down when someone is crossing the street. We need more sidewalks

Swimmerjean · 10 months ago

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