New CA Law Means Less ‘Unnecessary’ Police Confrontations: Lawmakers

CALIFORNIA — Californians will soon be able to walk across roadways outside of a crosswalk without fear of being ticketed under this new law — as long as the crossing is done safely, according to legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Assembly Bill 2147 — The Freedom To Walk Act — will somewhat legalize jaywalking. Pedestrians will only be ticketed for the act if there's an immediate danger of a crash, according to the bill.

The law is meant to reduce "unnecessary" confrontations with police and to reduce its impact on certain communities, according to Assembly member Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), who authored the bill.

"It should not be a criminal offense to safely cross the street. When expensive tickets and unnecessary confrontations with police impact only certain communities, it’s time to reconsider how we use our law enforcement resources and whether our jaywalking laws really do protect pedestrians,” Ting said. “Plus, we should be encouraging people to get out of their cars and walk for health and environmental reasons."

The bill is Ting's second attempt to do away with citations linked to jaywalking in California.

"Jaywalking is arbitrarily enforced throughout California, with tickets disproportionately given to people of color and lower-income individuals who cannot afford tickets that can often total hundreds of dollars," according to a statement from his office.

The law will take effect on Jan. 1, 2023.

Until the law passed, jaywalkers could be fined up to $198 in California and court fees could easily bump that number up.

In one landmark jaywalking case, late rapper Tupac Shakur was stopped by police for jaywalking in 1991. The rapper settled a $42,000 lawsuit against the Oakland Police Department after he said he was thrown to the ground, cuffed and choked until he lost consciousness, Yahoo News reported.

But some are concerned about the "immediate danger" stipulation of the bill. It will be up to individual police officers to determine which pedestrians should be reprimanded.

"There's still that piece of officer discretion," Tamika Butler, a social justice advocate and private consultant focused on equitable transportation policy, told LAist. "As a Black person in this country, officer discretion has never gone well."

The bill was written to help reduce inequitable enforcement of jaywalking laws. According to Last, police in Los Angeles cite Black pedestrians at a rate over three times their population in the city.

Although the city just has a 9 percent Black population, 31.5 percent of jaywalking tickets are given to Black pedestrians, LAist reported.

"Jaywalking laws do more than turn an ordinary and logical behavior into a crime; they also create opportunities for police to racially profile," said Jared Sanchez, Senior Policy Advocate for CalBike. "A jaywalking ticket can turn into a potentially life-threatening police encounter, especially for Black people, who are disproportionately targeted and suffer the most severe consequences of inequitable law enforcement."