jaywalking

今天，看到这样一句话：“为什么在罗马乱穿马路会被罚款，但在纽约却不会？”（Why are pedestrians fined for jaywalking in Rome but not in New York?）

来自  http://www.xiaolai.net/

于是wiki了一下这个jaywalking, it is:

Jaywalking is an informal term used to refer to illegal or reckless pedestrian crossing of a roadway. Examples include pedestrian crossing between intersections (outside a marked crosswalk) without yielding to drivers and starting to cross a crosswalk at a signalized intersection without waiting for a "Walk" indication to be displayed. In the United States, state road rules generally follow the model Uniform Vehicle Code in requiring drivers to yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing in a crosswalk (subject to certain conditions); at other locations, crossing pedestrians are either required to yield to drivers or, under some conditions, are prohibited from crossing.

Although American road users often speak informally of a driver or pedestrian "having" the right of way in a given situation as if it were a matter of predetermined possession by right, state vehicle codes do not convey the right of way to any road user; rather, they describe conditions under which a given road user is obliged to yield the right of way to another. They indicate by implication which user has the right to the right of way (this is also known as having "priority"), but cannot assure that such user will actually enjoy the right of way, and therefore require all users to observe "due care" in the process of exercising the right of way.
In contrast, the United Kingdom does not formally describe priority regulations for drivers and pedestrians at road junctions or other locations, except with respect to marked Zebra, Pelican, and Puffin crossings, where pedestrians have "precedence" under defined conditions[1]. Elsewhere, the Highway Code relies on the expectation that pedestrians in the process of crossing at (unmarked) road junctions should have priority, as a matter of common care.

According to one historian, the earliest known use of the word jaywalker in print was in the Chicago Tribune in 1909.[2] (The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1917.) The term's dissemination was due in part to a deliberate effort by promoters of automobiles, such as local auto clubs and dealers, to redefine streets as places where pedestrians do not belong.[3] It is a compound word of the words jay and walk; "jay" refers to a foolish rural person—a rube—unfamiliar with city ways. No historical evidence supports an alternative folk etymology by which the word is traced to the letter "J" (characterizing the route a jaywalker follows).

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking