The ethics of jaywalking

In general, I'm not the biggest jaywalker. Sean rolls his eyes when we're trying to cross busy streets and I drag him to a crosswalk, or make him wait for a green light.

But, I do jaywalk on certain streets. I walk up and down Pike every day to/from the bus, and after weeks of waiting at the same light every day while no cars pass by, I got more and more comfy with jaywalking. If I don't do that, the 6-block walk to the bus takes about 10 minutes because of all the lights.

So one day I was waiting at a light and standing next to me was a man with a seeing-eye dog. After a couple cars passed, I started jaywalking and then I thought "hmm, I hope I don't confuse the dog". No, of course the seeing-eye dog was not fooled by my lawlessness - he patiently waited for the green light. The dog probably thought to himself "that human isn't very well trained!"

Then a couple days later, at that same light, I start jaywalking and across the street from me is a man with two little kids. He of course didn't let them cross, but then I thought to myself that I was setting a bad example in front of those little kids.

I don't know - this is my question for you. Is it morally wrong to jaywalk in front of dogs or kids, and if so which one is worse?