Jaywalking is the illegal act of crossing the street when one should not. Chances are, you have probably been guilty of jaywalking at one point or another. In fact, you may be jaywalking right now. But have you ever wondered why it is called jaywalking instead of something like pigeon-walking?
In the early 20th century, cities went through an industrial revolution of sorts. Buildings got taller and space got smaller. In just a few decades, the transportation of choice went from horse to horsepower.
Prior to the automobile, the law stated that every man, woman, and chicken had an equal right to the highway. But the automobile changed everything. To control the chaos (and danger) emitted from cars driving everywhere, modern traffic signals were placed at crossroads.
The gasoline fuelled city life was especially hard on visiting country folk. Early 20th-century urbanites referred to naive country tourists as jays. As you can imagine, jays were often oblivious to the newly enforced traffic laws because they did not understand the traffic signals. Before long, a jay crossing the street evolved into jaywalking. A word that has consistently been ignored since the creation of the automobile and will most certainly for years to come.
