Chapter 114 Question 103

Why are pedestrians fined in Rome for failing to obey traffic rules, but not in New York? (Joseph Weiss) Anyone who has been to Manhattan knows that pedestrians here rarely pay attention to traffic lights.As long as there is a slight gap in the road, they will run a red light and cross the road.And they all do it in front of the patrolmen, because they know that while the law prohibits disobeying traffic rules, in fact very few people get tickets.In Rome, on the other hand, the police routinely issue tickets to jaywalkers, so there are relatively few red-light jaywalkers in the city.What is the reason for this difference?

If we were to explain why people who jaywalk in Berlin get a ticket, we can probably say that Germans are notoriously following the rules.But few people say that about Italians. However, there is one striking difference in traffic conditions between New York and Rome that presumably helps explain the difference in enforcement.In New York, nearly all roads are cars and trucks.If a pedestrian runs in front of a car or truck, he is likely to be seriously injured or even killed, but not to the driver of the car.Conversely, most roads in Rome are filled with bicycles and motorcycles.Thus, a jaywalker in Rome is less likely to injure himself than in New York, but relatively more likely to injure someone else.

Finally, differences in fine practices appear to be indirectly related to differences in tax policy.Italy has high gas prices, high car taxes, and more people riding bicycles and motorbikes on the streets than in New York. Therefore, strict law enforcement must be enforced against pedestrians jaywalking. The following example illustrates an interesting difference in the way products are marketed in different countries that are superficially similar.