Legislature mulls jaywalking measure

Testifying in support on the bill, the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice noted that Hawaiʻi records significantly higher numbers of jaywalking citations—an average of 5,028 per year—than other localities. For example, from 2000 to 2023, the per capita rate of jaywalking citations issued in Washington State was 6 per 100,000. In Hawaiʻi, the rate is 349 per 100,000.

According to the organization, jaywalking enforcement leads to hostility toward pedestrians, over-policing of black and brown communities, loss of state revenue (from the low collection of assessed fees versus the cost of public resources expended to make citations), and the negative impact of debt collection and court records for violators.

The organization, which supports full decriminalization of jaywalking, recommended that the current bill exclude a clause that requires that pedestrians be more than 200 feet from a marked crosswalk to exercise discretion in whether to cross a roadway contrary to the traffic code.