In my town, jaywalking IS a crime, though people seldom get ticketed for it. It’s also fairly stupid to say “I have the right of way!” when a 40 ton truck is barrelling down the road.
But hey, think of it as evolution in action (as Niven and/or Pournelle would say).
Fenris, I dont know if you are serious or not, but assuming you are:
Many places such as strip malls and shopping centers and parking lots have posted signs that state “No Skateboards”. Apparently those zany kids can really tear up some concrete if they do their flippy things too much or too hard or something. Kids skate there anyway. Then police come. Then they get escorted off the property or citations in some cases. Their shirts and bumper stickers should say “Skateboarding is not a crime, but trespassing and skating on private property is sometimes.”
<hijack>This came out of the early 1980’s and the phrase was popularized by the skateboarding magazine Thrasher. Skateboarding is actually against the law in many places. Many skateboard shops at the time used to proudly post tickets on the wall, stuff like going 45 mph on a skateboard in the street.
Merchants, parking garages and others started posting signs up that said “skateboarding is a crime.” Quickly skaterats started making up stickers saying “skateboarding is not a crime.” The more creative ones cut up the stickers to say “not skateboarding is a crime.” Now this phrase has really become mainstream. </hijack>
I know it goes against pit-iquette to ask for cites, but where is it illegeal to skateboard? (I am assuming by places you mean towns/cities etc, and not parking decks/strip malls etc)
“Crime,” when referring to jaywalking, is not an inaccurate term per-se, but it does seem a bit strong. I think “infraction” would be more fitting, somehow.
google is your friend. I haven’t skateboarded in the US for well over a decade so perhaps some of the younger dopers can chime in here. The following is a link to Seattle’s Municipal Code
Hey, I was playing it safe, since it wasn’t specified how long before the set date he’d turn the big one-six-eight-zero. Heck, he might be 1680 now… wouldn’t that be creepy?
Google is my friend when I know what I am looking for (and know what you are referring to). As I stated in my last post, I didn’t know if you meant towns or specific areas within towns. And I couldn’t get your link to work, although my friend google helped me out with a “skateboarding illegal seattle” search.
SPOOFE:
I thought that everyone knew he was kickin it legit back in 307. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Now, was someone talking about The Blue Jays? Or was it breakdancing? Oh, JAYWALKING. yeah, not a crime. right. cough
Where I grew up, in the mid-eighties, early ninties, skateboarding was a crime where I lived. The stance in towns around me has changed, and a lot of them have skate parks as a place to hang out for the kids.