The auto industry were the ones that made jaywalking illegal. Before cars, it made perfect sense to cross the street in the middle of the block. It was not a problem until cars came along. People owned the streets until cars came along and took them over.

It is legal in some states to roll through a stop sign on a bicycle. A couple reasons for that. One, at the lower speed, there's more time to see the cross traffic. Two, the bicycle doesn't have the power or momentum to cause serious injury like a car does.

It's the same with the power boats vs. the sailboat. A 10,000lb boat at 5kts might do some damage, but just doesn't have the power to do serious injury like a 10,000lb boat at 20kts. You can tell the sailboat doesn't have the energy to cause as much damage because its engine to get it to 5kts is only 10hp, vs 300hp for the power boat. 10hp isn't going to provide the vehicle as much energy to cause injury as 300hp is. With a bicycle, they have about 1/2hp, or maybe as much as 2hp if it is electric. It is orders of magnitude less power and less momentum to cause damage.

When the power isn't free, either by sail or by pedaling, losing that momentum for traffic controls is much more onerous than just pushing a little lever, which is why the rules favor the sailboat and the bicycle.

Bicycles have the additional advantage of being small. Being able to sneak up between the line of cars waiting at the light and the side of the road, makes it so they're not adding to the line.