The following testimony was submitted by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii for consideration by the House Committee on Transportation on Feb. 13, 2025.
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Feb. 13, 2025, 10 a.m.
Hawaii State Capitol
Conference Room 430 and Videoconference
To: House Committee on Transportation
Rep. Darius K. Kila, Chair
Rep. Tina Nakada Grandinetti, Vice-Chair
From: Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
Ted Kefalas, Director of Strategic Campaigns
RE: TESTIMONY IN SUPPORT OF HB941 — RELATING TO PEDESTRIANS
Aloha Chair Kila, Vice-Chair Grandinetti and other members of the Committee,
The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii would like to offer its support for HB941, which would allow pedestrians to act contrary to the traffic code after exercising reasonable care that there is no danger of collision with a moving vehicle.
In other words, this bill trusts people to cross the street after checking carefully that there are no cars coming.
However, we do have two concerns regarding the language of the bill.
First, the requirement that a pedestrian’s actions not cause a car to stop or slow down adds an element of ambiguity regarding how a law enforcement officer should interpret that clause.
Does the benefit of the doubt in such a situation go to the pedestrian or driver? How is the purpose of this bill fulfilled if it includes a clause that prioritizes the flow of traffic over the reasonable behavior of a pedestrian?
We suggest that the Committee remove the clause, “or result in a moving vehicle slowing or stopping in any fashion.”
More important, the language regarding a pedestrian’s proximity to a crosswalk unnecessarily complicates the bill. As a practical matter, it is unreasonable to expect a pedestrian or a police officer to accurately estimate whether one is 200 feet from a crosswalk, as the bill proposes.
The 200-foot requirement is also too limiting as it fails to address unnecessary citations given when pedestrians are crossing safely at crosswalks.
The requirement that pedestrians act reasonably and safely, combined with the overall intent of the bill, should make the “200 feet” clause unnecessary. If it is reasonably safe to cross, it doesn’t matter how far away the crosswalk is. If it is not safe, then the crosswalk being more than 200 feet away doesn’t transform the action into a reasonable one.
Thus, we suggest that the Committee strike the following language from the bill: “provided that this section shall only apply when the pedestrian is more than two hundred feet from a marked crosswalk.”
These changes would strengthen the bill and better protect the “right to walk.”
Some people might question the necessity of jaywalking reform, but an examination of the growing movement for such “right to walk” bills demonstrates that jaywalking laws have little to do with public safety. Rather, the enforcement of statutes relating to pedestrians is rigid, and the statutes themselves are — as noted in the bill’s preamble — “needlessly restrictive.”
Any Hawaii resident can regale you with a story of the absurdity of Hawaii’s pedestrian laws, including the expensive citation they or a friend received for being in the crosswalk a few seconds too soon or too late. Such stories are evidence that the current system contributes to an adversarial relationship between law enforcement and the public.
In fact, research from the Hawai’i Appleseed Center for Law and Justice reveals that annual per capita jaywalking citations in Hawaii outstrip locations like New York City or the entirety of Washington State by more than 5,800%.[1] Moreover, jaywalking citations issued in Hawaii are highly concentrated at certain locations.[2] Together, these two facts suggest that something other than public safety is motivating the state’s excessive enforcement of jaywalking laws.
Another reason to reexamine jaywalking laws can be found in the evidence that such laws have been disproportionately enforced against disadvantaged groups and minorities.[3] As the bill notes, “fines forpedestrians can have a disproportionate impact on people who donot drive and who primarily rely upon walking as a means oftransportation.”
As for the legitimate worries about safety, data from Virginia’s 2020 decriminalization of jaywalking demonstrates that right-to-walk laws do not lead to an increase in pedestrian injuries or deaths.[4] After all, people crossing the street are more concerned about not getting hit by a car than avoiding a fine.
Finally, decriminalizing jaywalking could encourage more people to walk by making the streets friendlier to pedestrians.
Again, this bill trusts Hawaii residents to cross the street safely. We commend the committee for considering this bill.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
Ted Kefalas
Director of Strategic Campaigns
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
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[1] Abbey Seitz, “Freedom to Walk: Decriminalizing Jaywalking and Shifting Investment Towards Safe, Accessible Pedestrian Infrastructure,” Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice, March 2024, p. 7.
[2] Ibid, pp. 8-9.
[3] Angie Schmitt, “The Progress of Jaywalking Reform,” America Walks. June 19, 2022.
[4] Ibid.
