READY, FIRE, AIM: Jaywalking Through America

Criminal activities can be fascinating. When viewed from a reasonable distance.

After I got tired of reading about the insurrection at the US Capitol building, I decided to do a little light-hearted research into the crime affectionately known as ‘jaywalking’.

A crime I personally may have committed more than once.

Turns out, laws are written by people… and we sometimes assume that they mean one thing, when they actually mean another. And sometimes they are… well, meaningless.

My research led me, first, to the Town of Pagosa Springs’ Municipal Code, where the crimes I might commit right here in my own home town are listed, one by one.

Oddly enough, I could not find ‘jaywalking’ listed among them. But here’s a crime that I found interesting:

Any person who consumes less than twelve (12) ounces of marijuana openly and publicly or in a manner that endangers others commits a municipal offense.

Apparently, if you consume MORE than twelve (12) ounces of marijuana openly and publicly, or in a manner that endangers others, you have NOT committed a municipal offense. My hat is off to anyone who can consume more than 12 ounces of marijuana, openly and publicly — or in any other fashion — and live to tell the tale.

Here’s another crime I might be tempted to commit, if I were a deeply troubled individual:

No person shall knowingly smell or inhale the fumes of toxic vapors for the purpose of causing a condition of euphoria, excitement, exhilaration, stupefaction, or dulled senses of the nervous system.

The law then carefully lists the toxic vapors in question. And most of them are indeed toxic. Highly toxic. Some of the most toxic chemicals on the planet.

(a) Alcohols, including methyl, isopropyl, propyl, or butyl;

(b) Aliphatic acetates, including ethyl, methyl, propyl, or methyl cellosolve acetate;

(c) Acetone;

(d) Benzene;

(e) Carbon tetrachloride;

(f) Cyclohexane;

(g) Freons, including freon 11 and freon 12;

(h) Hexane;

(i) Methyl ethyl ketone;

(j) Methyl isobutyl ketone;

(k) Naphtha;

(l) Perchlorethylene;

(m) Toluene;

(n) Trichloroethane; or

(o) Xylene

Very likely, the law would have been equally effective if they’d simply written, “No person shall knowingly destroy their own brain.”

Inhaling toxic fumes is, of course, a victimless crime. The only person I could hurt would be myself. And I presume the same goes for this municipal crime as well:

A person who engages in gambling or professional gambling commits a municipal offense.

This law, however, presents a slight ethical problem for the Town government, because a significant portion of the Town’s annual budget typically comes from Great Outdoors Colorado, better known as GOCO… and all of GOCO’s revenue comes from gambling: the Colorado Lottery, to be exact.

GOCO has collected, and distributed to governments, about $1.3 billion to date — from a state-run gambling operation.

But let’s get back to the essential question at hand: jaywalking. Like I said, the Town of Pagosa Springs doesn’t have a municipal law against jaywalking, presumably because the State of Colorado took care of that problem by writing its own law.

That law (CRS 42-4-803) says a couple of important things.

Between adjacent intersections at which traffic control signals are in operation, pedestrians shall not cross at any place except in a marked crosswalk.

and

Every pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles upon the roadway.

As I read these laws, it seems that ‘jaywalking’ is perfectly legal in Colorado, if you are not performing your act at a spot located between two ‘adjacent’ traffic control signals.

And so long as you yield the right of way to cars and trucks… which is, in my experience, always a good idea.

All of which suggests that I haven’t, in fact, committed nearly as many crimes as I thought I had.

And when you add in the number of times that I have NOT consumed less than 12 ounces of marijuana publicly, and the number of times I have NOT inhaled aliphatic acetates, including ethyl, methyl, propyl, or methyl cellosolve acetate in order to increase my excitement or stupefaction, and the number of times I have NOT played the Colorado Lottery, I probably appear downright law-abiding.