Kansas City is spending nearly $80 million to protect pedestrians it simultaneously lets run straight into traffic.
Five years ago, the Kansas City Council voted unanimously to repeal its ordinance outlawing jaywalking; that same year, traffic deaths in the city hit a three-decade high, according to KCUR. That figure is shocking, but it really shouldn’t be; it’s the predictable consequence of permitting reckless behavior. If a law measurably saves lives, we shouldn’t abandon it; we should enforce it. I doubt many people believe otherwise, including the Kansas City Council. They plainly don’t want people to get hit by cars; their $80 million investment in Vision Zero, a ten-year plan to eliminate traffic deaths, makes that clear. So if the Kansas City Council is truly dedicated to protecting pedestrians, why did it repeal such a clearly advantageous pedestrian protection? As with many oddities in this world, the answer is political pressure.
That political pressure isn’t confined to Kansas City; it’s gone national. California, Nevada, and Virginia have loosened their jaywalking laws statewide, and New York City has followed. In Nevada and Virginia, pedestrian deaths rose after the change.
Good intentions don’t equate to good outcomes, especially when the costs come as funerals, not fines, for those same communities.
The loosening of jaywalking laws isn’t malicious; the government doesn’t want you to die. They are rightfully worried about the concerns associated with pedestrian enforcement. The enforcement of petty crimes such as jaywalking has unfairly fallen on minority groups in the past, as selective enforcement became a method to sidestep due process. But the issue has never been with the protections themselves; it has always been with how they are enforced. Leaders are making these changes based on good intentions; unfortunately, good intentions don’t equate to good outcomes, especially when the costs come as funerals, not fines, for those same communities. If Kansas City’s death toll is any indication, cities may be trading one problem for a deadlier one.
The vast majority of pedestrian deaths happen away from intersections: 74% in 2023, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That year, 7,314 pedestrians were killed and about 68,000 were injured. To put this into perspective, on an average day, about 20 people who head out on foot won’t make it home, and nearly 190 more will be hurt. Beyond the high risk of death, surviving being hit by a car doesn’t mean walking away; the risk of severe, life-altering injuries remains extraordinarily high. Perhaps hardest to accept is that much of this pain and suffering is avoidable. Better enforcement of pedestrian protections would save lives and limbs.
On an average day, about 20 people who head out on foot won’t make it home.
Enforcement works for a simple reason: it encourages pedestrians to stay where they are safe. Drivers know to expect pedestrians at crosswalks; their attention is limited and has been trained to focus on intersections. When a pedestrian steps out into the road at an unexpected place or time, a driver’s ability to avoid a collision is significantly limited. Unfortunately, pedestrians may be undeterred by the danger and make that step regardless. That is where enforcement becomes critical; it becomes the deterrent, the reason to stay on the curb.
Jaywalking laws were first introduced, ironically enough, in Kansas City, to do just that: to bring order to a world of dangerous chaos. More than a century later, the city that pioneered pedestrian safety has lost its way, just as the streets have gotten busier and cars more deadly. While infrastructure like Vision Zero takes years to make our roads safer, restoring and enforcing pedestrian protections can make a difference today. Enforcement doesn’t need to stop all reckless behavior; rather, it needs to disincentivize people from making reckless decisions whose risks they might not know or care about.
Vision Zero and plans like it are phenomenal examples of leaders investing in life-saving infrastructure and showing that they do care. That makes it all the more bewildering that so many have caved to political pressure and disregarded the dangers present now.
The government exists to serve the interests of its citizens, not to watch them get run down. Making sure it serves its purpose falls on us.
Every single one of the roughly 20 people killed today won’t just be a statistic; each will be a smile and laugh never seen or heard again. Nobody should spend years waiting for infrastructure to protect them when a solution is available today. We will pay the price in lives for the decisions we let our leaders make without weighing what those decisions cost. The government exists to serve the interests of its citizens, not to watch them get run down. Making sure it serves that purpose falls on us.
Our choice is a simple one to make: tell them to save lives today, or count the dead tomorrow.
Brighton Bybee ’30 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at bybee@wustl.edu.