Do jaywalkers in Hawaiʻi even get tickets?

Most public testimony submitted online supported Senate Bill 2630, also known as the “freedom to walk” or “right to walk” bill, but the measure was opposed by key law enforcement, including the Honolulu Police Department. Versions passed in the Senate and the House, but differences were not resolved for final passage.

As for the second reader’s questions, we’ll summarize the bill below, and yes, thousands of people in Hawaii are ticketed each year, at rates higher than other states, according to a report by the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice.

From 2018 to 2023, 30,168 jaywalking citations were issued in Hawaiʻi, a figure that does not include sealed cases or juvenile records, the report said. The highest number (8,201) were issued in 2018, it said. The vast majority of tickets were issued in urban Hono­lulu, from Kalihi to Kaimukī.

Find the full report on the Appleseed website. It traces the rise of jaywalking laws to the 1920s as the nascent automobile industry sought to avoid blame for rising traffic fatalities and concludes that jaywalking laws have not made pedestrians safer, are costly to enforce (78 percent of Hawaiʻi tickets went unpaid), and disproportionately punish black and brown pedestrians.

Christine Donnelly

Honolulu Star-Advertiser

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