The concept of criminalizing jaywalking might seem like an intuitive one, one that was designed with the safety of the pedestrian in mind. But in fact, the exact opposite is true. Jaywalking was invented by the auto industry as a way of shifting the blame for traffic crimes off automobile drivers and onto pedestrians, rather than out of an actual desire to decrease the number of pedestrian deaths due to automobiles.

From: https://www.grunge.com/721704/the-truth-about-how-jaywalking-became-a-crime/