Stop your jaywalking, while running errands or shopping in Montclair Village.  According to the buzz, our cops will begin actively ticketing pedestrians for committing this crime and breach of etiquette.

Local merchants watched the police hold court on La Salle last Thursday and Friday.  A few confirmed that cops were warning jaywalkers, yet stayed focused on ticketing folks who drove through crosswalks while pedestrians were still there.

According to eyewitness Laurel Strand, the cops “were actually holding up traffic yesterday while ticketing motorists in the middle of La Salle – kind of a surreal scene as the merchants and pedestrians all outside watched the ticketing as a strange form of entertainment.”

Roger Vickery, director of the Montclair Village Association, explained that Oakland Police were responding to community requests, and will “be back to address jaywalking and motorist behavior in the future.”

“Village merchants want the laws obeyed but not to the point where shopping in the Village is affected,” said Vickery.  “Perhaps with a bit more cooperation between pedestrians and motorists we won’t have the need for OPD enforcement.  I would seriously welcome that.”

So what is jaywalking?  Well, it means crossing the street between intersections where there are lights, stop signs, and obvious crosswalks.  To clarify, here are relevant excerpts from the California Legal Codes:

• Code 21955:  Crossing Between Controlled Intersections – Between adjacent intersections controlled by traffic control signal devices or by police officers, pedestrians shall not cross the roadway at any place except in a crosswalk.
• Glossary 445:  Official Traffic Control Signal – Any device, whether manually, electrically or mechanically operated, by which traffic is alternately directed to stop and proceed and which is erected by authority of a public body or official having jurisdiction.
• Code 21950:  Pedestrians At Crosswalks – (b) No pedestrian may suddenly leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path of a vehicle that is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard.  No pedestrian may unnecessarily stop or delay traffic while in a marked or unmarked crosswalk.

Don’t know about you, but I have definitely parked on La Salle or other places and just scurried across the street to do errands.  Now we’ll have to consciously reach a crosswalk and proceed – and this shouldn’t be too onerous.