I’ve written and presented extensively on racist origins and continued abuse of jaywalking laws.

It’s encouraging to see California start the process of removing what has always been an intentionally bad law.

Jaywalking was initially a crime lobbied for by the car industry, and is seen by some as a law that unfairly targets people based on race and economic status.

The Freedom to Walk Act for 2023 will prevent California police from targeting random walkers with bogus criminal charges and instead requires a simple test: “immediate danger of a collision.”

It sounds like just some common sense because that’s how bad the old racist jaywalking laws were.