This issue has come up as some republican lawmakers have started legislation designed not to protect drivers who hit demonstrators - LINK.
What do you all think?
Personally I think what is needed is a clarification of the law because I feel that obviously if people are jumping on your car, smashing rocks into your windows, or otherwise acting in a way where you feel threatened, then yes, I think you have the right to drive away even if that means driving thru people. Protestors should also know when they are going over the line.
Now just because there is a demonstration going on and you are mad because your late for work - well not so much.
So for me the answer comes in:
clarification of the law of just when one should be allowed to drive thru protestors and
police need to keep the roads cleared so this isnt an issue.
One problem is that the protesters which are making you feel threatened may not be the ones who get killed when you drive away. It’s not like everyone at a protest has the same motivations or same intentions about harming you. So if a few people around your car are violent, that doesn’t mean that every protester between you and the exit also means you harm.
I think if you could limit the people you kill to just those attacking your car, I think you would be able to justify that. But it’s unclear what’s justified when you will kill other bystanders. Your life may literally be in danger and you will be killed if you don’t flee, but you will need to kill innocent people to flee. As a human I can understand fleeing in that circumstance, but I don’t think I could justify killing bystanders who were not attacking your car.
If your car is being attacked, it is almost certainly because you have tried to drive it into the crowd. You should not be doing that. Your first job as a driver is to not run into stuff. You encounter situations from time to time that delay your progress, like accidents, construction, landslides. You do not have an open-ended right to force your car into any crowd of people, whether a protest march or a veterans parade. Legislation that says otherwise is plain wrong.
You might get some sympathy and a somewhat mitigated sentence from the court at your murder trial that you freaked out while under attack and stomped on the gas but I doubt that will keep you out of jail for running over and killing several protestors who had nothing to do with the attack on your car.
As mentioned if you can manage to only injure/kill those attacking you then you have a better case but that might be hard to do in a crowd.
Like elbows hints at, I’d strive to avoid being caught in a vehicle by violent protesters, but if I genuinely felt that my life or the life of my passengers were endangered, I’d not have many qualms about laying on the horn and the accelerator to make my escape. I would hope that in most cases there are things that can be done earlier in the sequence of events to avoid that being necessary.
I sincerely doubt that’s always the case. I’ve seen enough videos of violent protesters smashing random windows and starting shit on fire to know that mobs are sometimes irrational and don’t always use violence exclusively in response to aggression. Sometimes, often even, the mob itself is the aggressor.
In most states the answer is something like: when a reasonable person would believe the use of force is necessary to prevent or put a stop to another’s unlawful actions that threaten to result in great bodily harm or death.
As has been said before, you stop well before you reach the crowd. That is normal behavior for a non-distracted driver, and it gives you time to scope out a retreat plan for escape. If you pull right up to the edge of the crowd, you are being stupid. If you are driving distracted, you deserve to be punished for it. If you stay back, the marchers will not see you as a threat or target.
Possible damage to your car != great bodily harm or death
You can’t shoot someone for scratching or denting your car, so why should you be able to run them over and kill them that way? Your car is protecting you, unless there is a gun pointed into your window or something, but we’re not talking about that.
No it’s not. If you have a vital need to be somewhere and you have a right to be on the road and a violent mob does not then it’s perfectly ok for the state to codify that.
Agreed that that’s the best plan. Unfortunately, the crowd doesn’t always stay in one place. I could see a situation where a driver turned onto a street, saw the crowd ahead of him, so came to a complete stop to maintain distance between himself and the mob, but the protesters moved towards the unmoving car. Perhaps the driver couldn’t even back up anymore because of traffic stacking up behind him. When the crowd of protesters surround the car and begin striking the vehicle, perhaps even shattering windows, a reasonable (and I think justifiable) response would be to put the vehicle in motion to get out of the situation. If protesters refuse (or are unable) to clear a path, that would be unfortunate, but less unfortunate in my eyes than serious harm befalling the occupant(s) of the vehicle.
I never claimed anything about “possible damage” to a vehicle, or was talking about scratches and dents. I’m explicitly talking about a genuine threat of great bodily harm. Maybe some members of the crowd have tire irons, bricks, or baseball bats, and are yelling “we’re gonna get you!” while smashing the side windows and reaching into the vehicle to unlock it. In a case like that, a reasonable person might conclude their life is in danger. The vehicle, while stationary, is no longer offering adequate protection.