They shouldn’t block traffic. I’d support legislation that protects drivers who unintentionally hit them.
Would prosecutors have to prove the intentions of the driver?
He drove by a cop that was trying to get him to stop. That’s simply factual.
Well, you originally said that the crowd was aggressive and provoking to this innocent driver. Are you now acknowledging that that is not the case, and that they were not aggressive or provoking until the driver drove into them?
As this thread is about protests and when you can drive your car into them, and you are saying that you can do so when you are in fear for your life, and you only have a reasonable fear for your life if the protest is violent, it is an important distinction, and it is also important to point outta the vast majority of demonstrations, on both left and right, are peaceful assemblies, and so would not have anything to make you fear.
Not so much more of an edge case than the exceedingly rare times that you find yourself caught up in a violent protest or riot and have to shove your way through the crowd.
IANAL, but I doubt that jaywalking is what legislators had in mind for removing your duty to retreat.
And if you see a person trapped in front of the car, knocked down and about to be crushed, would you protect them from the driver’s assault, or worry about the uncomfortable level of legal jeopardy you personally may encounter?
Okay, so if you have entered the street as a jaywalker, and someone tells you to get out of the street or else, and starts advancing towards you while swinging a baseball bat, you have no right to defend yourself?
Two points to consider there. First point, the law does say that you will face no legal or civil penalties for harming them with your car, which “runn[ing] them down” is short for. Second point, if you see at the end of my line, I put a [/jk], which means that I was speaking facetiously.
But your attempt at insulting dismissal is noted and dismissed.
The law as it stands generally protects people who unintentionally do bad things insofar as they were not negligent. What’s wrong with that? Why the big need to protect negligent people?
nc
While he should have checked the source better, he only repeated what the author claimed. So, yes, falling for the author’s lies is not great, but that is not “proving the point of the author”, it is just incorrectly believing that the author is not a liar. In order to prove his point, he would have had to be doing original reporting on the incident, and come up with something like what the author fabricated.
So esceheral, you have been successfully trolled by your own cite. Oops. Fortunately, you have done nothing like proving his point. But, I would recommend reading to the end of the articles, as it is entirely possible that you are being trolled by a right wing liar.
Now, as far as violent tea partiers, here’s a few links with a bit better vetting.
Is it okay to run these guys over, they are in the street?
Here’s some violent tea partiers. Best not be a part of the media, exercising your first amendment rights in a way they don’t want you to.
They are not just violent at protests, but are violent towards legislators and their families as well.
“Union thugs”. A zombie political chimera rises from the graveyard of Eisenhower-era editorial cartoons. Always swarthy, unshaven, vaguely ethnic, an inch or so of cheap cigar sticking out of their cheek. Union thugs Wobblie, but they don’t fall down.
“Granpa, tell us again about the Union Thug and the Three Little Job Creators!”
What about that was a lie? He gave an example story and then said, “That’s how I believe the main stream media and lefty websites would have reported the left wing violence …”. That’s not a “lie”, that’s an opinion. Or are you one of those Dopers with an odd definition of “liar”?
I think it also should depend on when and where.
For example, dont walk out onto a busy highway where thousands of vehicles (cars, semis) go by at 60 mph every hour and where there is literally, NO PLACE to go around. Drivers might be patient for maybe 5-10 minutes before you will start seeing some come thru and no damn law will stop them.
But I can see maybe a downtown area where cars can easily go around.
Where did I say this? I don’t believe I’ve ever claimed that the driver in the UCSD incident was ever “provoked” by the crowd or that they were “aggressive” towards him. I DID say that about the crowd in the Portland protester, where the crowd attacked the vehicle. I think you probably misunderstood that I was talking about two separate incidents, but it’s also possible I didn’t make that distinction clear in my posts.
Yes, I agree. The cases where a driver has a reasonable fear for his safety from protesters are quite rare.
If by “protect them” you mean would I shoot the driver? No, probably not, unless the person was a close friend or family member, or I was exceedingly confident that I understood the entirety of the incident. It’s probably worth mentioning here also that shooting the driver is not a good way to stop a vehicle. In many cases, it won’t do it quickly enough to avoid whoever is in front of the vehicle getting crushed. You and the potential-crushee would probably be better served by working to get them out of the path of the vehicle in most cases.
In Utah, you’d probably be fine if you shot the bat-wielder, but I’d be a bit less confident of your legal footing than if you were standing on the sidewalk.
Ok, how about this?
Lets say the law says I as a driver cannot drive thru protesters.
How about a law AGAINST blocking traffic with stiff penalties so the drivers know the protesters will NOT get off scot free?
Along with this put up signs on highway entrance ramps warning persons NOT to try and stop traffic and reminding them of the heavy penalties they will see?
You see, my idea is to eliminate the problem. Get the idea out of these idiots heads that standing in the street blocking traffic is nothing but a big joke with no consequences and if you do, your ass will get arrested and you will spend time in jail and pay a heavy fine. Double the penalties for blocking a major highway.
Do you support legislation making it a crime with stiff penalties to block roads?
Yeah, generally I’d be supportive of laws along those lines.
While everyone may have different views on what “heavy penalties” may be, sure. I have zero problem with it. But something tells me that you may be thinking more like “10 years in prison!” and I’m thinking more like “$5,000 fine!”
It is not an odd definition. A liar is someone who says things that are not true. He made up an entire story, complete with commentary by liberal pundits. Then after “the fold” he fesses up.
While I do agree that it was poor research on e’s part, you made the claim that it proved the author’s point. I disagree, I just see that he fell for the author’s lies.
You are probably right, I don’t know that I want to try to scroll and track down the post, so I’ll agree for now that I misunderstood and that I thought you were talking about one when you were talking about the other.
Yet we need a law to deal with these extreme edge cases?
Personally, on edge cases, I prefer to just do what seems most reasonable at the time, and hope to justify myself in front of my peers. If I found myself in trouble and in fear of my or my family’s life, I wouldn’t be looking up the law to see what my options are, I’d be doing what I feel needs doing.
It’s like the torture thing. People claim that we need to have torture legal for a “ticking time bomb scenario”, and I disagree entirely. In the extremely unlikely case that torture will save lives, then I will be considering the questions of whether I could live with myself after torturing someone, and whether I could get the information, not as to what the legal status is. I’d leave that to a jury of my peers as well. If we made torture legal under certain circumstances, then that would open it up to abuse as people manage to engineer those circumstances that get them off on a technicality. I feel the same way about these sorts of laws. They are unnecessary, as the courts can already reduce or dismiss your case due to extenuating circumstances, so having a law that can be engineered for abuse is counter productive.
If you or the potential crushee cannot get out of the way of the vehicle, as you are in a big crowd that is being compressed by the vehicle, then trying to get out of the way is just allowing yourself to get killed. Sure, shooting the driver may not stop the car, but it will make it easier to reach in and put the car in park.
Would you attempt to stop the driver in any way? I don’t carry a gun, especially not to a protest, but I could certainly see breaking the window, and knocking out the driver to take control of the vehicle that he is currently using to injure people.
I still don’t see the difference between someone approaching you with a bat and with a 2 ton vehicle.
It is already illegal to impede traffic.
The police don’t seem to enforce it against protestors.
Not sure how strong you want the penalties to be but it is pointless if the police won’t enforce it anyway.
eschereal said something that wasn’t true in post #319, but I certainly wouldn’t call him/her a liar. S/He was just mistaken. I think you would benefit greatly from a more refined definition of “liar” (personally I think it’s one of the best things I’ve learned from the SDMB), but carry on as you please.
I have a hard time envisioning me being anywhere near one of these protests that block traffic. I detest them and would not participate. If I happened to be nearby, and saw a vehicle-protester confrontation, I would be unlikely to insert myself in the middle of it. If, by some crazy confluence of circumstances, I was the one about to be crushed, and truly couldn’t move out of the path of the vehicle, I would certainly try to take action to stop the driver, although I think the probability of success is quite low.
Both a bat and a 2 ton vehicle can be deadly weapons. If the vehicle is moving at 1 MPH and honking and the driver is yelling at people to get out of the way, and the people have room to move aside, as happened in the video in the OP, I think one would be hard-pressed to successfully make the case there that the vehicle was being used as a deadly weapon and that one was justified in harming the driver. If, for example, someone in Charlottesville had turned around at the last second and seen the Dodge coming towards them, I think they would have been justified in shooting at the driver. Can you see the differences between those two encounters and why one is not likely to be justified in the one case and likely to be justified in the other?
Ok, I screwed up with that link. I should read the whole text. Sorry.
Normally, pedestrians have the right of way, and you should (nearly) always yield to them, even if they are demonstrating. That said…
If the pedestrians are armed and acting aggressively towards you, or trying to break in with tools or rocks or other implements of destruction, then you need to vacate the area. BUT EVEN THEN, unless the only way away from them is through them, you need to do so safely. You have a deadly weapon – your car. You have to act accordingly. You may have to receive some dents, or other damage to your vehicle, but arson should not be repaid with murder.
If I found myself suddenly confronted with a number of tiki-torch bearing Illinois Nazis…well, I’m a civilized man, I have every confidence that I would not succumb to rage and give them a Volkswagen enema. I would pull over, turn it off, lock it, and throw away the keys.
I don’t doubt my self-control, but why take the chance?