The Criminal Walker

"The Criminal Walker – How the auto industry made it illegal to cross the street" investigates a crime that didn't exist before the 1920s: jaywalking. Before the car, streets were public spaces for children to play and vendors to sell. When cars began killing thousands of pedestrians, the public was outraged, calling for speed governors on vehicles.



Social historian Ethan Cross reveals the massive PR campaign launched by the auto industry to shift the blame from the driver to the victim. They invented the slur "Jaywalker" ("Jay" meant a country bumpkin) to shame pedestrians who didn't yield to cars. The book details how lobbyists rewrote traffic laws to prioritize speed over safety, effectively stealing the street from the people.



"The Criminal Walker" is a micro-history of how corporate propaganda shapes our daily behavior. It explains why we intuitively feel that roads belong to cars and why walking in a straight line is considered a crime.