There comes a point where the government goes too far and people have to just stand up and say no. One of those situations is jaywalking laws. Gilroy is a little town 20 miles south of San Jose. It’s just 50k people and the main drag through downtown is Monterey Street. This is one of the areas where they want to outlaw jaywalking.
The road is a little 2 lane road through the old downtown area. Traffic in the area is slow and the street isn’t very wide. But California governments have what I consider to be a toxic culture of wanting to pass more and more laws to manage every aspect of our daily lives. There is no reason for this law except it’s kind of a monkey see monkey do copy of jaywalking laws in other California cities. If this were San Francisco I could understand it because they have a pedestrian culture there who is too stupid not to walk out in front of cars.
So – I think that Gilroy should direct its slim resources to filling pot holes and delivering city water which, in my view, is the primary duty of government. I would rather see the city police focus on gang-related problems and not busting people walking across the street. I also think that general oppression of freedom laws cause people to become more stupid and will result in lowering the IQ of the city. We citizens need to push back against this government culture and keep the focus on pot holes and not looking for new ways to keep the sheep in line.
Some day our children and grandchildren will look at this video and remember the time when someone could just walk across the street when they want to without California telling them they can’t.
