Toronto has recently been panicked by a mathematical anomaly.  In the month of January, fourteen pedestrians in the GTA  (seven in Toronto) were killed by cars.   Proving that the state will always do the exact wrong thing, the police have now cracked down on jaywalking.

I spend a lot of time walking in this city of ours and I’ve almost been hit by cars plenty of times.  It’s not because I jaywalk.  I very rarely do.  Jaywalking is a lot like nose-picking.  You should do it when it’s worse not to.  I’ll jaywalk when its the safer option or when the roads are abandoned.

I don’t do it out of convenience or rushing.

And, just like nose-picking, jaywalking has some health benefits.  Especially when you live near an intersection as dangerous and accident-prone as mine.

Although I dislike jaywalking, I’m not some big booster of traffic lights.  They should be abolished.  It’s dangerous and moronic to put your faith in some machine that other people are supposed to obey.  Red lights are being run all the time.  (I saw it twice yesterday and once today, while out doing my laundry.)  And you only need to be hit once.

I’m a big booster of looking both ways before I cross.

Because you have to fucking aware out there.  It’s not good enough to replace your judgement with a series of flashing lights like some sort of lab rat in a cheese dispensing test.  You have to look both ways.  And if you see a cop, it’s best not to jaywalk.  Unless you can handle the sanctimonious speech and ticket.

I can’t.

Because not only are they giving tickets, they’re also delivering lectures like a bunch of god-damn street corner Christians.   And adults are just standing there, listening to this? What are we?  Misbehaving children?  Our society is pretty fucked up when this terror of the police is normal.

There’s no need to police jaywalking.  There’s not even a need for a jaywalking law.  Jaywalking polices itself and it’s governed by two laws:  Those of physics and that of natural selection.  If a person can’t take one of those into account, they’ll quickly obey the other.  And the sort of person who can ignore physics and/or self preservation is unlikely to be impressed by fifty dollar tickets.

As that old Christian Anarchist,  Ammon Hennacy, once said: “Oh, judge, your damn laws: the good people don’t need them and the bad people don’t follow them, so what good are they?”  They’re no fucking good at all.

pic nicked from here