Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a law Friday that will decriminalize jaywalking across California, ending the familiar practice of police handing out tickets to pedestrians on the argument that the law is enforced more often against minorities than other people.
The new law, AB 2147, known as the “Freedom to Walk Act,” could bring an end to a cultural difference that has marked otherwise libertine Californians as being uniquely deferential to laws governing pedestrian traffic.
The difference between Californians, who ostensibly tend to obey “don’t walk” signals, and urban dwellers elsewhere in the country, who are notoriously defiant when it comes to crossing against traffic signals, was lampooned in the 2011 film Friends with Benefits, starring Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake:
