Apparently, walking is now a crime, as one mom recounted her infuriating experience on the r/f***cars subreddit of being "pulled over" by police while walking home from a doctor's appointment with her son in a small city in Georgia.
As she explained in the post, when they were nearly halfway home, her county's police chief stopped her and asked a few questions.
"He asked where I'd been, where I was going, and told me that they'd had a call from a 'concerned citizen' regarding a woman walking with her young child in the storms. Keep in mind, it HAS NOT rained yet," she said.
As if that wasn't annoying enough, the OP said that was the third time in five years she'd been questioned for simply walking.
"I don't understand the concern. If we were out and it was really storming bad, or if I didn't have him appropriately dressed, I could understand a little more, but really, we were just trying to get home," the poster vented to the community.
"It's been frustrating every time it's happened. The first time, I could semi understand because it was like 2-3 am, I was new to town and worked night shift, and so I was walking home. The second time, I was less understanding," the OP said in the comments, adding that she'd already lived in the city for two years and the locals knew her routine the second time around. By the third call, she started to lose patience.
People have been harassed for walking for over 100 years as the car industry began to take over and companies sought to criminalize people simply crossing the street. Sadly, little has changed today, as pedestrians are still looked down upon for being unable or unwilling to drive.
However, people who walk more places help the planet since cars are a huge driver of planet-warming pollution. They also create noise pollution that can disrupt wildlife and cause our nervous systems to work on overdrive.
Thankfully, cities across the globe are taking steps to reduce car dependency and make areas safer for pedestrians.
"Stories of bored cops harassing people doing nothing wrong make me feel better about having a police bureau that refuses to respond to calls. At least I'm not getting harassed for just being out in the world," one commenter said.
"I would complain to your local elected officials. They spent money on all that walking infrastructure and the cops are harassing people for using it? That's not a good return on investment," another remarked.
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