This paper, presented at Goldsmiths' City, Public Space and Body Conference 2021 focuses on the erosion of rights to the street as a cautionary tale. Beginning in the US at the dawn of the motor age, the paper explores how successive legal actions came to criminalise pedestrian and child-centred street life. The British counterpart to American jaywalking statutes are the ubiquitous guardrails which censure and brutalise pedestrian and vehicle movements. The paper poses alternative street relationships.