I cycle and never wear ear buds, but almost everyone under 30 exercises with some kind of ipod or whatever. I've know that, and cops should be able to figure that out too. I know they don't take people that score too high on the test, but it doesn't take a genius IQ to know people with earbuds can't hear you.chasfm11 wrote: I ride my bike along public bike paths. I often pass joggers with ear buds in. It is always my practice to hail them, especially if I'm passing them from behind so that they won't suddenly swerve into my path during my pass. Almost none of them appear to hear my hail. If I've figured this out, the jaywalk enforcing officers should be able to do the same thing.The assumption was that the woman was failing to voluntarily comply. My assumption is that she didn't have that opportunity to do so. They reacted by grabbing her when it would have been just about as easy to wave a hand in front of her eyes to get her attention rather than grabbing her. Someone who is unexpectedly grabbed is very likely to have a startled reaction and attempt to pull away.
I admit that it is a questionable practice to wear earbuds in public places. It is plain stupid (in my view) from a situational awareness point of view. But wearing earbuds in not yet criminal and turning a failure to hear into a failure to comply is an unnecessary escalation of the matter.
Perhaps I'm over-reacting? I sponsored a thread here in the past year which discussed my hearing loss and my concern that I may be in a position not to comply as crisply as an LEO might demand. The specific situation that I cited as my worst possible environment with cars and trucks passing as might occur during a traffic stop. I have a problem processing what I strain to hear under those kinds of conditions and there is sometimes a delay in my response.
It is one thing to need to take control of a situation. It is another to give the subject a reasonable opportunity to respond. "Reasonable" is not a synonym for "instantaneous"
She reacted exactly how I would expect a 20ish woman unexpectedly grabbed from behind by persons unknown to react.
Yes, because drunks getting run over on S. Congress at 3am has everything to do with alert UT students jogging mid afternoon near campus.cb1000rider wrote: APD has had focus on jaywalking before, especially when Austin has a high incidents of vehicle vs pedestrian accidents... If you can't hear the LEOs, then you probably can't hear the cars either.
There has to be a better way though.
It's not about safety, In the 24 years I've lived in Austin, I think I've heard of 1 UT student getting hit by a bus and he wasn't even hurt.