We do ban pedestrians from the streets; that’s what sidewalks are for.

Sidewalks don't mean you're not allowed to walk on the street. Streets are for everyone, including cyclists and pedestrians.

Could link to a lot of american perversions if you wanted to but that's a very narrow "we."

TFA is published by the US Department of Transportation.

My point was more that "things that americans do", "things that everyone does", and "things we should be doing" is a venn diagram with a very small center when it comes to car use.

When I used the word “we”, I was talking about the US. I don’t believe in a global “we”. You live in a country where pedestrians are allowed to walk out onto the same street where cars go, and I live in a country where they aren’t. And apparently, we are both happy with how our respective countries do things. And that’s fine; I’m happy that you’re happy with your country’s laws and customs and I wouldn’t want to impose my country’s laws and customs on anyone else.

There are plenty of other countries on that page with similar laws.

> In Zimbabwe, jaywalking is illegal, as per the traffic laws gazetted in 2013 by the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development.

> In recent years, jaywalking has become more strictly controlled in China as car traffic increased. Police have tested facial recognition to identify jaywalkers.

Italy:

> Pedestrians are allowed to cross a street without any recognised crossing point only if there are no zebra crossings within a range of 100 m

Not all streets have sidewalks but you can still walk on them....