The new law is billed as a pedestrian safety measure, which is just one of the problems with the law according to critics.
"The Dayton City Commission this week approved an ordinance that officials say seeks to reduce pedestrian strikes but that critics paint as a thinly veiled attempt to criminalize panhandling," reports Cornelius Frolik.
There are also critics who are concerned that the lawn criminalizes walking, in addition to criminalizing homelessness.
Laws like this that persecute pedestrians (nominally for their own safety but really for the convenience of motorists) are about power and social status, not safety.
If anything they make pedestrians less safe by increasing their marginalization. https://t.co/HbCVjwsTL3— Angie Schmitt (@schmangee) May 25, 2018
"The ordinance prohibits pedestrians from getting within three feet of vehicles that are in operation along 51 of Dayton’s busiest and most dangerous roadways," adds Frolik.
The article includes more about the city's efforts to reduce the number of pedestrians hit by drivers of cars in the city (685 in the past year). More conventional previous efforts include red light and speed cameras. Frolik also includes local voices of opposition to the plan.
Read the full story: Dayton OK’s ‘road safety’ law, but critics say it criminalizes being poor and panhandling
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