By Kevin Harrison

Jaywalking is something every city and town experiences on a daily basis. The act of crossing the street without being in a crosswalk or without the right of way can cost pedestrians as much as a $250 fine in some North American cities.

But where exactly did jaywalking come from and why is it such a issue today?

Would you believe that automakers actually had a significant part in making jaywalking as commonplace as driving?

Vox.vom recently explored the history of jaywalking and came up with some interesting facts.

For instance, about 100 years ago, the streets were filled with people and it was the driver’s job to avoid hitting a person, not the other way around.

“Pedestrians were walking in the streets anywhere they wanted, whenever they wanted, usually without looking,” said Peter Norton, an historian at the University of Virginia.

Then automobiles started to become more mainstream in the 1920′s and more and more were popping up on the streets. The end results were multiple injuries to people and even death.

This, in turn, spurred outrage and an anti-car movement was formed. Fearing that such a movement would impact sales, automakers were the ones that pushed for laws redefining who indeed had the right of way in the streets. As you’d expect, the new laws favoured cars.

Automakers and industry groups took over meetings to standardize their ideas of what the road laws should be nationally.

The only problem? No one followed the rules and police rarely enforced them.

Head over to vox.com to read the rest of the very interesting and enlightening article on how jaywalking progressed from there.