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You can have his feet when you pry them out of his cold, dead hands

Mitch Blum strides across the road in defense of Boston jaywalking:

... True story: when I lived in Beacon Hill a cop once yelled at me for not jaywalking across Cambridge Street. There was construction going on and me standing there was a bigger public safety risk than me jaywalking. In that instance jaywalking probably saved a life. Think about that for a minute.

Boston is a special place and part of our specialness is our still extant spirit of independence. Just because The Man installs a bunch of paint and lights doesn't mean he can tell me where or when to walk. ...

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Just because The Man installs a bunch of stop signs and red lights doesn't mean he can tell me where or when to drive.

Chew on that when you're under my bumper.

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The blog is a humor blog. He referenced the video-game Frogger in his argument, man. It ends with a disclaimer on where you can read more Boston-related humor.

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Wild in the Streets: A Boston Driver's Handbook

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The Globe piece was very one sided. The focus was primarily on 'bad' pedestrians. There are plenty of times when I indeed "jaywalk", but there are no cars around, so I'm not interfering with drivers at all. PLUS, most of the crosswalk signals in Boston don't work, or wait 'too long' to give pedestrians a walk signal, if they ever do. (Even the new count-down timers are wrong half the time). PLUS - I've been to places like Seattle, and the people there are idiots. (no offense :-) Walking home at 2 in the morning with no cars for miles and seeing people waiting at empty crosswalks for walk signals. That's goign a little too far.

Let's face reality - if we had to wait for a crossing light at every signal, it would take hours just to get across town.

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...but I secretly do love the jaywalking culture of Boston.

So I guess I wasn't entirely joking after all.

Thanks for the link Adam. Hope you all enjoyed the piece.

mb

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The culture is nothing new. My mother was stopped for jaywalking in San Francisco in the 1940s. As soon as the cop heard her speak, he said, oh, you're from Boston. Well, in San Francisco, jaywalking is illegal. And he let her go.

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