Essay, Paragraph, Speech on “Jaywalkers” Long, Short Essay for School, College Students, essay for Class 8, 9, 10, 12 and Competitive Exams

Jaywalkers

What is a “jaywalker”? The dictionary describes him as, “One who crosses a street without observing the traffic regulations for pedestrians”. Why he is called a “jaywalker”, I do not exactly know ; but the word probably comes from “jay”, the name of a bird, which is described as “a noisy chattering European bird of brilliant plumage.” Hence a man is called ” a jay” who is “an impertinent chatterer, a simple-ton”. In American slang, “a country bumpkin, a victim for cardsharpers, a greenhorn,” is called a jay. So we may trans-late “jaywalker” as “fool-walker”: a man who walks in a foolish, rash way. He is a danger to himself and to other people in the public streets.

Before the days of motor-cars, crossing the road was not a serious matter. The horse-drawn carriages, cabs and buses moved slowly ; traffic was leisurely and not very great. But the motor-car has changed all that. For one thing it has enormously increased the traffic on roads and streets ; for another, the speed at which motor-cars travel makes the roads dangerous. The highest speed of the old English mail-coaches was ten miles an hour. Now motors usually travel three or four times faster than that ; and many travel at the rate of sixty and even seventy miles an hour. To cross a road on which cars are passing both ways at the speed of express trains, is no easy matter. It calls for the greatest care and caution.

Even with strict traffic regulations, the control of the police, automatic signal lights, and careful motor-drivers, the number of accidents, many of them fatal, on the roads is appalling. In Europe and America, thousands of people are killed, and many more thousands injured, every year on the roads. Many, perhaps most, of these accidents are caused by careless or rash drivers. The “road-hog”, the driver who thinks of nothing but speed and drives wildly, is the curse of the roads.

But the “jaywalker” is also responsible for many serious accidents. Instead of looking up and down the street before he attempts to cross, and keeping his wits about him while crossing, he plunges heedless into the traffic, thinking of something else. He gets muddled up in the middle, loses his head, and either gets knocked down himself, or causes motors to swerve aside and crash into each other. The only way for the pedestrian to avoid disaster is to obey traffic rules, take care, and keep cool “Safety first” is the motto.