The weather in Austin has been way cooler temps during the day compared to a couple weeks ago. It’s even more cooler and nice in the evenings now.

Story time...

So right by where I live is a 4 way stop, it’s a residential neighborhood, not a lot of traffic like the picture above, hardly ever really.

When I was walking home yesterday evening a sheriff officer flagged me down from their suv to let me know walking diagonally across a 4 way stop is jaywalking.

It was so random among other things I saw walking home yesterday, I was the most civil person “breaking” a pedestrian law, a disproportionate law at that, more on that later.

I confirmed there was zero traffic on my right, no cars coming in 3 out of the 4 roads, absolutely nothing but this one sheriff suv waiting for me to cross. Exactly like above.

I walked across diagonally to the opposite corner, exactly like above, which if you took geometry is literally the shortest distance between two points it turns out.

As I walked across the sheriff suv drove right alongside of me slowly trying to get my attention, as I kept walking I noticed she started flashing red lights at me and at that point I completely stopped, I took my headphones off to find out what she wanted, thinking honestly maybe something fell out of my pocket, nope she informed me that what I did was called “jaywalking” under Texas Transportation Code provision, I went and looked it up, ya it’s there.

"A pedestrian may cross a roadway intersection diagonally only if and in the manner authorized by a traffic control device."

Meaning a pedestrian, that’s me, may only cross an intersection diagonally if authorized by a traffic control device, not sure what that would be, which is also a phrase that sounds like it was written by someone who has never once walked in a residential neighborhood before.

Couple things to note:

• There is no control device sign at that intersection and likely will never be.
• The rule exists without the permission structure it requires, which means the law points at a sign that was never built for this area.

The interaction was fine with the sheriff but the logic underneath it doesn’t make sense to me.

Technically I did the safe thing, yielded and waited, confirmed the road was empty, and I moved through the space in the way that made the most sense for me trying to get from one corner to another.

This provisional code has a clear flaw, it was not written for safety, it was written around predictability. I think somewhere along the way safety and predictability got filed as the same word, but that would require more digging.

Got me thinking you can see this everywhere if you look closely enough, rules that basically survive because nobody has revisited them at least once, since they were initially written.

Most drivers anticipate pedestrians crossing one street at a time, I get that because diagonal paths weren't originally planned for. It also seems straight crossings were simpler to enforce.

But I’ve been walking all my life and I disagree whole heartedly, the diagonal is shorter, it reduces hesitation risks with pedestrians who don't split crossing into two potential risky maneuvers, people also with mobility issues struggle making multiple starts and stops with traffic, and enforcement has never told me anything about this rule, genuinely thought it was made up until I looked it up.

Some cities actually have updated their codes to allow diagonal pedestrian crossings with proper signage, recognizing that smarter design beats blanket prohibitions. Chicago is one of them look how happy they look.

All this to say the diagonal walk is an honest walk, the way I see it in my head two crossings means two exposures to traffic, two chances to be in a driving lane, why not split the difference and walk across diagonally.