If you feel the intersection by your house is dangerous for pedestrians, you may want to take your case to the authorities, or get the story out there to the local media. What you don’t want to do is take matters into your own hands and paint a crosswalk by yourself… because you’ll probably get in trouble.

Just ask the Vallejo, CA, man who was recently arrested for felony vandalism after he decided his corner required a crosswalk.

“I tried helping my community out,” the man, since released from custody, tells CBS Sacramento. “I got tired of seeing people get run over here all the time.”

Granted, the man is saying all of this with a bandana wrapped around his face while attempting to demonstrate the danger of the 4-lane street by walking straight out into traffic.

The Vallejo police say they don’t know of any pedestrian-involved collisions in that intersection. They also point out that while there isn’t a crosswalk at that particular corner, there is one across the street.

But one area resident tells CBS that he thinks the crosswalk-painter had done the neighborhood a favor, adding, “And I don’t think he should have been arrested for it either.”

In addition to the vandalism charge, the man may be on the hook for the $1,000 that CalTrans says it cost them to chip the crosswalk off the street.

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