Good Samaritan Saved People From Being Hit By A Car, Got Jaywalking Ticket

The article doesn’t say whether the truck had the right of way or not; it sounds like they weren’t at a crosswalk, in which case jaywalking is right. It’s a shame he got injured so horribly, but you’d think if he cared enough to help the old ladies across the street, he’d care enough to do so in a safe manner. The American legal term for this is “comparative negligence” or “contributory negligence,” by the way.

Well said ms, well said!

My bf once got a jaywalking ticket at a very VERY long road where the nearest intersection/light was the equivelant of 3 city blocks. Yes he would have to walk 6 blocks total to get across the road. (down the street, cross at intersection, back up street).
To top it off, the moron cop gave him another ticket for having an out of state licence, when we had JUST moved 3 days prior (my bf could have lied about having just moved, but he was honest and punished for it.)

Some cops just love to be morons.

“Jaywalking?? That’s a stupid law anyway.”

People’s lives, as demonstrated in the article, can be endangered by not crossing at properly controlled and visible crosswalks. I see people on a daily basis running across streets, weaving between cars, against the light and 30 damn feet from the intersection’s crosswalk, endangering themselves, the drivers and the kids they drag with them. I mean, seriously, I learned the proper way to cross a street in the 1st grade!

“But everyone jaywalks.”

Just the kind of argument I’d expect from an 8-year-old. “But everybody does it!”

Sure, the guy was hurt, but the reason he was hurt was almost certainly because he was jaywalking in the first place. If the people he was helping cross the street in an illegal manner had been hurt, his punishment would have been far, far worse.

Is the media asking for police officers to ignore the laws when its a ‘good’ person? The purpose for a law is that there is no grey area – and the media in their portrayal of this event is appealing to the readers emotions to create a story out of nothing. The only people who are victims in this horrible reporting are the police officers of Colorado.

Its this sort of reporting that annoys me

“If they do it unsafely, it’s on them as far as I am concerned.”

And what about the drivers he walks in front of?

Love him or hate him, Sean Hannity offered to pay for the ticket.

i agree with krodar, i had never heard of jaywalking until a few years ago when a foreign official, was i think detained for jaywalking to a conference because he had also never heard of such a law. i’ve been crossing roads myself for years now, sometimes at a crossing sometimes not, but i have never been hit, and i have never caused an accident.

Jaywalking laws are really in place to get more money out of people. They are a big scam. There are no jaywalking laws in the UK because it is assumed one is going to act in the name of self preservation any time they cross the street, and seriously, accidents happen, but if you aren’t paying attention, that’s your problem. This is at least one area where the Nanny State hasn’t stuck its nose in for the sake of control or money making.

On the driver’s end of things, getting a driver’s license in the States is a joke. It’s where I learned to drive. Coming to the UK, I had to start all over again, and after 15 years of driving experience, took lessons for several months before going through a rather grueling driving exam. Drivers here are far more responsible and take the idea that driving is a privelege and not a right very seriously.

Bobo, that’s going to happen on one end or the other regardless of jaywalking laws. Everyone loves a lawsuit.

What many of you don’t know is that the bus stop is between crosswalks that are a 1/2 mile either direction. These ladies were going to cross the street no matter what. Jim knew this and thought he would rather help than not. That is a good samaritan, this other legal gobbley gook is nonsense!!! He is a true American Hero!!