Bessemer, AL Public Conduct: Jaywalking (2026)

Section 106-5 sits in Chapter 106, Traffic and Vehicles, Article I, alongside the city's blanket adoption of the state's rules of the road under section 106-1, which incorporates Code of Ala. by reference. Unlike a general jaywalking rule that would apply everywhere, Bessemer's rule is expressly geographic: it applies only 'within the business district of the city,' the commercial core rather than residential streets or the outskirts. Within that district, a pedestrian must cross 'at an intersection, at a right angle to such street, and within the sidewalk lines of such street extended across such intersection,' meaning a crossing has to line up with where the sidewalk would continue if extended straight across the road, not an angled shortcut between corners.

The section traces to Code 1973 § 22-79 and has carried forward unchanged in numbering into the current Code, sitting a few sections after the city's general adoption of state traffic law and just before the bicycle sidewalk-riding ban in section 106-6. Because it has no separate penalty clause of its own, an officer citing a pedestrian for crossing outside the marked pattern in the business district relies on the Code's general misdemeanor penalty rather than a traffic-specific fine schedule.