A state Senate bill would prevent pedestrians from being stopped by cops or fined for jaywalking unless there is an immediate danger of a collision.

Jaywalking enforcement leads to hostility toward pedestrians, over-policing of black and brown communities and loss of state revenue from the low collection of assessed fees versus the cost of public resources expended to make citations.

State legislators are moving along a measure to ban police from enforcing current jaywalking laws.

Legislators appear willing to make jaywalking legal across the islands—when safe—arguing in a Senate bill that pedestrians’ judgments are better at reducing injuries and deaths than traffic lights and traffic markings.

A new report by the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice argues that the state would be better off without jaywalking laws.