Jesus!! The whole of Cork would be licked up in a week!!

speaking honestly I get really frustrated with traffic when I’m walking – and really frustrated with pedestrians when i’m driving – maybe I need to join some sort of travelling anonymous group ? :o)

Jaywalk the odd time, but if there’s a set of lights I usually wait (although there are a set by my house that don’t seem to go green for pedestrians).

What bugs me as a driver is not the individuals who cross when possible, it’s those that lead with a buggy, that’s just stupid, and it happens far to ofter

It’s not like I walk out in front of cars. Or if traffic is at a standstill, I’m hardly gonna wait for it to disappear to be escorted across by the green man.

It makes perfect sense to consider going after to people for crossing a road when “they shouldn’t be” and not consider prosecuting the real criminals in the country. Anyone stupid enough to cross the road in the path of an oncoming vehicle is gonna be punished by the car anyway.

Never = Liars

Well seeing as theres nearly always one broken set of traffic lights where I walk, yes I do. Its the only way I can get across the road. Its hard to get where you need to on time relying purely on drivers letting you cross the road.

I visit Dublin quite a lot with my son as he visits st James and temple st hospitals on a regular basis. The biggest problem I find is that drivers don’t take heed of pedestrian crossings. Nearly got ploughed down by drivers running red lights on a regular basis. It’s the drivers should be monitored by cameras when the break red lights like in the states.

Rarely, I will say though Dublin compared to say Waterford or Kilkenny is insane when it comes to motorists.

If you jaywalk down the country the motorist will generally slow down/stop because they are smart enough to realise that hitting somebody isn’t good for them, their insurance or their car…..oh and the person they hit!.

In Dublin it appears motorists in alot of cases appear to get a kick out of actually speeding up, they def don’t appear to want to avoid hitting the person all that much…certainly not on the same level as down the country anyway.

Now back to the actual news story…..why are they introducing new stuff???
For the past decade the Gardai have been able to fine people for jaywalking…..I’ve never once heard of it happening though.

It is a victimless crime unless your stupid enough to walk out in front of vehicle….more garda time spent on stupidly.

One of the first things I learned when I made the move to Germany a few years back was: you DO NOT cross the road until the man is green and god help you if there are children around! It’s come to grow on me now and there’s nothing I enjoy more than spending a few seconds standing still and staring at the people across the road!

Yes, due to poor town planning across the whole of Ireland it’s impossible not to jaywalk, it’s also relatively safe to jaywalk in most towns if the person doing it has some cop on, unfortunately there seems to be a national shortage of cop on these days.

Dublin is of course an exception to the rule and jaywalking should be clamped down on hard in the city, elsewhere there’s no real need.

Surely there are other areas of traffic law that should be addressed? – like people jumping on bandwagons?

I will jay walk if its safe to do so . I not blindly wait for a green man to tell me . I wont cross however if a car has to stop or slow down .

I moonwalk across the road, why? because I got it like that ;)

While I may not always use official crossing points (mainly cause of bad placement or lack of enough of them) I the still follow the safe cross code when I cross the road. Fine people who cross without looking but don’t fine people who cross safely even is it isn’t an official crossing point. We don’t need to go down the American nanny state route with this, why in gods green earth would I wait for a green man to tell me to cross when I can see that the road is empty of traffic and to fine someone for that is crazy.

I used to do it a lot more before I learned to drive!

Yes

Hooray for more Americanisms!:-)

Sometimes I jaywalk because those ridiculously expensive new roads we got here in Galway have lights that are configured to make walking across the road needlessly complex and time consuming. However, I have noticed at the times when I wait for the little man to go green, if it is *technically* possible for me to cross the road, both pedestrians and drivers look at me like I’m some sort of simple-minded crazy for not having the balls to just go for it. It’s kinda like how Irish people don’t respond properly to fire alarms if we can’t see the fire. This fear of looking silly for waiting like a fool to be told to cross the road appears to be part of our DNA.

Another potential avenue to allow the Gardai to randomly interrogate you as you go about your business. Jaywalking might be dangerous in certain circumstances but it should not be a crime.

As long as it doesn’t reach the absurdity of Denmark where, if you’re crossing a road not at a crossing at 1 in the morning in the middle of nowhere a police car miraculously appears.

NOTHING CAN STOP ME FROM WALKING WHERE I WANT! NOTHING! MUAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA

I was off drink for 6 months so had the car out with me more often at weekends than usual and I was completely shocked at how crazy Dublin city was to drive through at 3am , I had noticed the way people cross during the day but in the drunken hours the amount of pedestrians crossing wherever they want , its out if control , I understand why there is a move to try get people to think and behave a bit different when it comes to pedestrian injuries

If they’re going to do that could they please also clamp down on drivers entering box junctions they can’t exit, i am sick of threading my way through them when the lights are green and especially on cyclists braking reds, in fact I don’t think I have ever seen a cyclist stop at a redlight at a pedestrian crossing, it’s disgusting.

It’s good practice for when you go abroad to those countries where jaywalking is mandatory!

In many cases at pedestrian crossings don’t give enough time to cross safely , point in case the pedestrian crossing at st Vincent’s hospital only gives you about 10 seconds to cross. Don’t know how many times I have had and seen so many near misse

In some places you would have to walk miles to the nearest crossing. Its a new campaign to collect fines and revenue for Government. Everything they do is about money and what they can suck out of us.

I see Gardaí cross the road when it’s red all the time.

I have to thank The Journal for this article. I saw it before lunch and went off down town. Was just about to cross the road (break in traffic), when I remembered this article, next thing I look at there was two Gardai on the Pedal Bikes stopped at the lights…. But then four people crossed and the Gardai couldn’t’ have cared less

Might help if they built & maintained pedestrian crossings etc. in convenient places. So you dont have to go on a ten minute walk to cross on a zebra crossing JUST to turn around and get back to close to where you started.

Fantastic,a rehash of an unworkable law.Has the country really gotten to that stage,where we are all out of good ideas ???

If the traffic light control centre had a bulls notion how to configure a traffic light network properly well then people might not j walk.

My dad was done for jaywalking about 20 years ago, at the Jervis street/Mary street crossing in Dublin! If anyone knows it, it’s laughable! Needless to say he went mental at the guard! Told him if your doing me your doing everyone else lol I think it was the bit we’re my dad refused to give him his name that got him summonsed to court!! My mother told him to give his name so he did but still had his day out in court for giving cheek!

Maybe they could enforce this law after they put pedestrian crossing lights in locations that obviously need them, Mountjoy Square and where the Ranelagh Road meets the canal being two examples familiar to me.

Jaywalking? Are we in America now?

In some cities it is pedestrians have to wait ages for the red man to go green. I generally wait eventhough most other people will check trqffic and then cross.
It irritates me to see Gardai and traffic wardens crossing when red man is indicated. bad example to kids and others.

As a driver I always am vigilant for pedestrians as I always Jaywalk myself and am aware that I take a risk but it is my body at risk and personally don’t care. In view of the reduction of gardai it would be hard to enforce. The roads crossing for the pedestrian is few and far between and a long wait as cars are given the first option. I think we Irish have little regard for personal safety and even less for the ‘nanny state’ telling us what to do.
As a footnote:-
By the way I a gripe I hate pedestrians / drivers who dawdle walk /drive obstructing others and also generally middle aged men who think women shouldn’t be drivers on a road ( younger male drivers are used to seeing their mothers drive). That’s my moan. Mary Anne

Surely a clampdown on cyclist using the roads would be more appropriate, they don’t abide by any laws and cause all sorts of havock. Of course most of them are green party, environmental PC tree huggers so we couldn’t be seen to tamper with their rights.

How many people die from jaywalking a year? 5? 10? WHO CARES??? Crossing the street is not such a dangerous thing, unless you’re a moron! This is another one of those mega-ultra-ridiculous things we constantly have to put up with in Ireland on a daily basis.

Do it all the time , yet it really annoys me when I’m driving , if I break a red in a car I get a fine and points yet if I break one crossing the road I get nothing . Suppose something has to be done

I said sometimes I walk everywhere but cos there so many traffic lights in Naas now – think they got a backhander from council- you don’t need to, the lights never take that long & why risk being killed or injured just for sake of a few extra minutes waiting

You’re reading of the Road Traffic Regulations for pedestrian road users is wrong! The law states:
“On a roadway on which a traffic sign number RPC 001 [pedestrian crossing] has been provided, a pedestrian shall not cross the roadway within 15 metres of the crossing, except by the crossing.”
IE: it is only within 15meters of of a crossing that you are obliged to use it to cross the road. Also its impossible to answer your question as there are now Jaywalking laws in Ireland making it impossible to Jaywalk no matter how you cross the road!

jaywalkers the bane of a truckers life ……….and a law should come in if you’re hit while jaw walking ….well tough shit

What is jaywalking? ;-)

As a matter of interest what about those speed bumps with a dash of white paint … are they official zebra crossings? There’s no flashing lights, just pedestrians who walk in front of you because you’ve slowed down for the speed bump.

My other pethate is people who opt to jaywalk in the space I’m parallel parking into …

Another law for the poor people to obey. It will have to be done because the plebs will all have to walk soon and sure the rich don’t want to be slowing down.

No I don’t you can never be in that much of a hurry that you would risk your life, as a child you learn to cross the road safely that should stay with you as a responsible adult, I teach my children how to be road safe

It’s almost impossible to not jaywalk in Ireland as the so called safe crossing points are more dangerous as well as being few and far between.

I have no objection to ppl jaywalking, i just have an objection to ppl walking straight out in front of me, and then wonder why you are getting irriatated with them…i do wish that the traffic warden in our town would do his job right. One of the pedestrain crossing (its a raised black and white one no traffic lights) is a nail biting experience getting over as 95% of the time there are cars parked on it, and a lot of ppl expect you to see them even though your view is obstructed!
Had a man walk out in front of me last week, stand in the middle of the road so that he could get his friends across the road, still trying to figure out the logic of that one as i would have stopped and let them across as it was raining