Jaywalking: The Silent Killer

You know, we have a lot of laughs out on the blog, but today I'd like to talk about something serious. A couple weeks ago I got handed one of the most alarming flyers ever to change hands. Not alarming because of what it told me, alarming because of the fact that it implied an appalling ignorance of the general public to one of the most dangerous trends we’ve seen in years.

Jaywalking.

More like not okaywalking.

First and foremost, I feel like I should go over some of the facts presented in the flyer just to give you all a feel for how urgent a situation we’ve caught ourselves in.

#1. Jaywalking kills. This one was actually the title of the flyer, but honestly, is there any debate here? You wouldn’t let your grandma jaywalk, would you?

#2. Nearly every 9 minutes one pedestrian gets injured in the United States. So I skipped two facts on the flyer to get to this one, because I’m fairly certain that by now those of you who at any point gave me your numbers and have been receiving “are you ok?” text messages at 9-minute intervals are wondering by now what has sparked this incredible, deeply concerned and sensitive side of me. Some of you may be pursuing legal action to get me to stop, and to you all I can say is this: I hope you use a crosswalk on the way to court. I know I will.

#3. Most UVA students do not approve of Jaywalking. An eye-opening statistic indeed! Think about the subtext here for a second. UVA has somewhere around 15,000 students. If the unusually high percentage of “most” of them (which is A LOT larger than “slightly more than half”) disapprove of jaywalking, that means that every time you and your contempt for minor inconveniences are bearing the weight of more than 7,500 disapproving opinions. Think about how many facebook friends you have. I bet it’s a lot less than the amount of jaywalkingsbook enemies you’re getting.

Now at this point, some of you may be asking questions like “but what about suburban streets that lack crosswalks?” and “what about entering crosswalks at stoplights before the timer runs out? Surely it’s not so black and white! It’s all in shades of graywalking!”

My answer to this is to think of it as playwalking, as in, “play it as safe as possible at all times”walking. Stay on the crosswalks, make sure you have enough time, drive across the street in suburban neighborhoods, be as careful as possible. It’s not worth the price you could paywalking.

Seriously though guys, don’t get run over.