California Law Enforcement Agencies Prepare For Legal Jaywalking

A new law that decriminalizes jaywalking and prevents law enforcement officers from giving jaywalking tickets for most jaywalking situations is to come into law on January 1st, with many departments across the state preparing for the law change this week.

Bills trying to either outlaw or decriminalize jaywalking have been repeatedly attempted since the mid 2010’s in California, but never managed to either pass the California legislature or get signed by a Governor. Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom had personally signed a veto against a bill decriminalizing jaywalking due to concerns about public safety. However, in 2022, a bill finally managed to get passed.

According to Assembly Bill 2147, authored by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), law enforcement officers will be prohibited from giving pedestrians tickets for jaywalking unless there is an immediate danger of collision with a moving vehicle or other device moving exclusively by human power and would make it legal to cross a street when not at a crosswalk or against the crosswalk light when it is not an immediate hazard to do so. AB 2147 will also require the Commissioner of the California Highway Patrol to submit a report on statewide pedestrian-related crash data, with a specific note on how the new changed pedestrian safety.

Assemblyman Ting authored the bill, also known as the Freedom to Walk Act, because of the high costs of fines that jaywalking can bring, unfairly affecting poorer people. Ting also championed the bill as helping encourage more people to walk rather than drive for environmental reasons.

“It should not be a criminal offense to safely cross the street,” said Assemblyman Ting of his bill earlier this year. “When expensive tickets and unnecessary confrontations with police impact only certain communities, it’s time to reconsider how we use our law enforcement resources and whether our jaywalking laws really do protect pedestrians Plus, we should be encouraging people to get out of their cars and walk for health and environmental reasons.”

Jaywalking changes ahead in 2023

As AB 2147 had fixed worries in previous bills, such as allowing law enforcement officers some leeway to still give tickets, Newsom signed the bill in early October, with a formal start date of January 1, 2023. Now only days away, law enforcement agencies and departments across the state are preparing for the upcoming change.

“We’ve been helping several departments that have given a high number of jaywalking tickets,” noted Joe Rivas, a law enforcement consultant in Riverside County, to the Globe on Wednesday. “It’s not like the new law is difficult to follow, but there is definitely a bit of a learning curve involved. Most officers will still say its not very safe to cross in a lot of situations because a car in someone’s blind spot could come by, or someone can misjudge a distance, or someone could trip and fall when running across a break in traffic.”

“And right now, just by going through hypotheticals, there will definitely be cases where a ticket will be challenged because, in some scenarios, crossing what looks like an empty street can suddenly get very dangerous even with safe drivers. We’re prepping people the best we can, but like I said, this law is just too loose right now because individual cases really are what will make or break this law. And right now, it seems like it is getting ready to be broken. Especially with Californians getting comfortable with this law, then going out of state and suddenly getting tickets. That’s an effect that will definitely happen in the future. Well meaning law, but not well thought out. That’s been the general consensus.”

The new jaywalking law is to come into effect on January 1st.