REPEAL AB2147
REPEAL AB2147
This is a student-led public safety campaign dedicated to restoring clarity and predictability to California’s roads. We believe that public safety policies must be rooted in objective math and expert data, not personal guesswork and profiling.
The goal of this website is to expose the hidden dangers of the "Freedom to Walk Act" (AB 2147) and gather community data to push for its repeal. By pairing hard traffic statistics with local feedback, this site acts as an advocacy hub to demand a return to objective jaywalking laws that protect both pedestrians and motorists.
The Dangerous Legacy of AB2147
Assembly Bill 2147, known as the "Freedom to Walk Act," officially decriminalized jaywalking across California. The purpose of the bill was to reduce pretextual police stops and racial profiling, while also eliminating expensive, burdensome traffic fines for lower-income pedestrians who cross mid-block out of convenience. Under this policy, law enforcement can no longer cite a pedestrian for jaywalking unless their actions create an "immediate danger of a collision." Assembly Bill 2147 was passed to reduce pretextual police profiling and heavy traffic fines by decriminalizing jaywalking, but its real-world implementation has severely compromised public safety. By legalizing mid-block crossing under a vague "immediate danger" standard, the law strips away the road predictability that drivers and pedestrians rely on. This guesswork becomes outright lethal on high-speed roads like Irvine Boulevard, where everyday citizens must calculate vehicle closing speeds with zero margin for error—a problem drastically worsened by the rise of fast, silent e-bikes. Ultimately, the bill is functionally redundant; because police officers still retain the subjective authority to decide what counts as an "immediate danger," it fails to eliminate police discretion while actively making California streets more dangerous.
What is AB 2147? (The "Freedom to Walk" Act)
To understand the true nature of Assembly Bill 2147, it is necessary to look directly at the mechanics of the legislation itself and the specific sections of the law it altered. Authored by then-Assembly member Phil Ting of San Francisco, the bill is officially titled the "Freedom to Walk Act." At its absolute core, the bill is an amendment to the California Vehicle Code. Specifically, it prohibited law enforcement officers from stopping or citing a pedestrian for crossing the street outside of a designated crosswalk, or for crossing against a traffic signal, unless an officer determines that a "reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of a collision with a moving vehicle or other device moving on components of the highway." In short, it shifted the legal burden from a strict, objective rule to a subjective evaluation of active road hazard dynamics.
This legislation did not appear out of nowhere; it has a direct and high-profile predecessor. In 2021, the exact same author introduced Assembly Bill 1238, which was an earlier iteration of the exact same policy push. AB 1238 successfully cleared both chambers of the California State Legislature but was ultimately vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2021. In his official veto message, Governor Newsom explicitly warned about the precise safety outcomes we see today, stating that California could not support legislation that risked worsening the state's already high pedestrian fatality rates. Undeterred, proponents re-packaged the bill the following year as AB 2147, adding the specific "immediate danger" clause to appease critics and bypass the previous veto, leading to its eventual passage and enactment on January 1, 2023.
Strip away the political messaging, and the bill is fundamentally about removing the baseline legal framework that separated foot traffic from vehicle traffic. For decades, California Vehicle Code Sections 21954 and 21955 required pedestrians to yield the right-of-way to vehicles outside of crosswalks and to cross only at intersections between adjacent signalized crossings. AB 2147 did not delete these sections, but it effectively stripped them of enforcement power. By eliminating the ability for police to issue a deterrent ticket before an accident happens, the bill transformed jaywalking from a predictable civil infraction into a dangerous guessing game for pedestrians, leaving zero structural fallback when a pedestrian misjudges a closing gap.
What is "Immediate Danger"?
The concept of "immediate danger" is the absolute pivot point of AB 2147, yet the law itself never actually defines what those words mean. Instead, it relies on a highly subjective standard: whether a hypothetical "reasonably careful person" would perceive an oncoming threat. In a real-world traffic environment, this forces pedestrians to make split-second, complex mathematical calculations regarding closing speeds and distances. This standard is biologically flawed because human eyes struggle to accurately judge the velocity of objects moving directly toward them. On a typical California arterial road, a vehicle traveling at 50 to 60 MPH closes ground at a staggering 73 to 88 feet every single second, meaning a gap that looks perfectly safe to a pedestrian can transition into a fatal collision zone in the blink of an eye.
The rapid proliferation of silent, high-speed e-bikes traveling up to 28 MPH makes calculating this "immediate danger" standard practically impossible. Because these micro-mobility devices have a tiny visual silhouette and make zero engine noise, pedestrians frequently overlook them entirely when scanning a multi-lane road. By replacing a clear, objective rule ("do not cross mid-block") with a vague guessing game based on flawed human perception, AB 2147 creates a dangerous paradox. The "immediate danger" is often only realized once the pedestrian is already stranded in the center lanes, transforming what was meant to be a civil right into a statistically lethal trap.
Can you accurately judge immediate danger? Try it yourself in the next section below.
Our simulator (a work in progress) drops you into the exact scenario AB 2147 encourages California pedestrians to get into every day. See if you can play real-life frogger with high-speed vehicles and silent e-bikes before it's too late.
Simulation of Jaywalking on a Public Access Road
The example we provided for the road seen in this simulation are highly stripped down and simplified versions of actual streets in the city of Irvine.
The Case for Repeal
Public policy should prioritize collective survival over individual convenience. Repealing Assembly Bill 2147 is a necessary correction to restore objective, measurable safety standards that shield the public from preventable tragedy.
Public Safety Concerns
Legalizing mid-block crossings forces pedestrians to gamble against physics on high-speed roads like Irvine Boulevard. This guesswork has turned lethal with the rise of fast, near-silent e-bikes and electric motorcycles, which drastically compress braking distances. By removing clear boundaries, the state destroyed the road predictability that drivers and pedestrians depend on to avoid fatal collisions.
Legal Precedent
Effective safety laws must be clear and objective. Governor Newsom originally vetoed this policy because 63% of pedestrian fatalities involved safety violations, proving that uniform rules save lives. Simply put, the law fails on both fronts. By replacing strict rules with a vague definition of 'danger,' it leaves the final choice up to individual police officers. This completely fails to prevent officer profiling while successfully stripping away pedestrian safety.
Community Unity
Road safety is not a battle between motorists and pedestrians; a predictable environment protects children, the elderly, and drivers alike. True community equity is achieved by demanding state investment in infrastructure, like marked crosswalks and better lighting, rather than legalizing dangerous behavior. Restoring clear jaywalking laws allows communities to unite behind the shared expectation that everyone deserves a safe route home.
The Ripple Effect of Repeal
We are witnessing a shift in public consciousness. Our mobilization has sparked a grassroots movement that is redefining what is possible for animal welfare in California.
Statutory Redundancy and Enforcement Ambiguity
AB 2147 states that an officer can only cite a pedestrian if a "reasonably careful person would realize there is an immediate danger of a collision."
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The Redundancy: The law didn't actually strip police of their authority; it just changed the vocabulary. Officers are still the ultimate arbiters of what constitutes an "immediate danger" on the ground.
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The Legal Gray Area: By removing a clear, bright-line rule ("do not cross mid-block") and replacing it with a subjective standard ("immediate danger"), the law creates immense legal ambiguity. Drivers, pedestrians, and officers all have conflicting definitions of what is "safe," which complicates liability in court cases and insurance claims following a collision.
The E-Bike Compounding Factor
The traffic landscape in California has fundamentally shifted since the law was written. The massive proliferation of heavy, fast electric mobility devices has shattered traditional traffic flow models.
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Velocity Mismatch: As seen in our survival simulator, an e-bike can easily travel between 20 to 28 MPH in the margin or outer lanes.
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Visual Blindspots: Pedestrians looking for massive, bright car headlights before stepping off a curb frequently misjudge the gap or entirely miss the silhouette of a silent, fast-moving e-bike. Decriminalizing mid-block crossings while simultaneously introducing high-speed micro-mobility to the curbside has created a hyper-volatile conflict zone.
The Data: The Law is Harming More Than Helping
The most compelling argument for repeal is the raw safety outcome. The fundamental premise of the law—that pedestrians can accurately judge high-speed arterial gaps—is statistically failing.
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The Physics Deficit: A human walking at a standard pace of 3.5 feet per second cannot safely negotiate an
un-signaled mid-block crossing against an arterial road designed for cars traveling at 60 MPH (88 feet per second) -
The Vulnerability Trap: By removing the legal deterrent, the state unintentionally signaled to pedestrians that mid-block crossing is structurally safe. This "false sense of security" encourages vulnerable road users to bypass protected, signalized intersections, resulting in a documented rise in severe pedestrian injuries and fatalities across California's multi-lane corridors.
PLEASE GIVE US YOUR OPINION
Assembly Bill 2147 was passed with the promise of protecting civil liberties, but traffic safety data suggests it has fundamentally compromised pedestrian survival on California roads. Policy shouldn't be written in a vacuum, it needs to reflect the real-world experiences of the people who actually use, navigate, and drive on these streets every day. By sharing your perspective, you are helping us look past the political messaging to uncover whether the "immediate danger" standard is a clear, functional safety policy or a confusing, dangerous gray area. Your feedback provides the vital local data needed to build a factual, community-driven case for restoring common-sense road safety laws.