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The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime (Adam Ruins Everything)

Dropout · 8.7M views · 2015-10-12 · 3:25

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Overview

An Adam Ruins Everything segment claiming that jaywalking became a crime through campaigns by the auto industry. It is a short, comedic history of how streets were reclaimed for cars.

On Hacker News

HN uses it as shorthand for the argument that car dominance was manufactured by deliberate propaganda.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2019–2024

Topics

Transit, cities & urban planningSatire & parodyLaw, policing & justice
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jaywalkingcar cultureurban planningpropaganda

What people said

carapace · 2021-10 · Recommendation

FWIW this is my go to source for the story: "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime (Adam Ruins Everything)" [VIDEO] It's brief and fairly entertaining.

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carapace · 2020-12 · Recommendation

I rarely recommend videos but this one in re: Jaywalking is funny and informative: "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime (Adam Ruins Everything)" [VIDEO] I was telling a coworker about this once and he didn't believe me, but it was basically a deliberate and successful attempt at mass social engineering through domestic propaganda. We went from vilifying reckless drivers as "speed demons" to vilifying pedestrians as "jays" (yokels or hicks.)

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carapace · 2024-10 · Reference

The crazy thing is, and forgive me if you've heard this before, this insane situation is the result of a deliberate domestic propaganda campaign: "The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) [VIDEO] "Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street", Peter D. Norton [LINK]

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Sources

Video by Dropout, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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