I jaywalk all the time. I have a habit of keeping my momentum going. If I want to go to the store across the street, I'd like to be on that side of the street before I get there, so if I'm two blocks down, that's when I work on crossing the street. I look both ways but keep on walking, until there's an opening chance, to the other side I go. I don't like to stop and wait. I'm the type of person that generally go with the flow in every situation & keep it going nonstop, no matter the cost.
Unless you're a kid walking home from school or an adult with a kid/baby walking/riding bikes(basically the only group of people you'll see using crosswalks here), everyone normally just cross the street whenever/wherever they feel like it.
My town isn't that huge, but I normally cross at about the same area every time when I need to cross, because that's just a habit I have I guess. There are times where I happened to be right on the path to use the crosswalk when I see no cars nearby, but I look both ways to see if its clear to go or if I need to run, etc. I definitely don't use the lights to tell me when I need to walk/stop. I never pay attention to that. I put more focus on the red/green lights the cars use than the street lights if anything.
The cops in my town (Norwalk, Ohio) don't really do much of anything, jaywalking isn't really a big deal here. You shouldn't have any worries doing it here because I do it all the time when there's a cop nearby, coincidentally xD
But in my opinion, if you're going to jaywalk, don't be stupid & run in front of a car if they're that close to passing by -_- Not a lot of people like to wait or have the patience. I actually had no idea this was illegal, by the way. Just thought it was frown upon or the crosswalk being highly recommended for safety issues or whatever. I guess that's why we have road guards for schoolkids.