Yield, yes. But for how long and under what circumstances? Does a person have the right to stand in front of my car keeping me and thousands of others for as long as they want?
What if I yell out I have to go thru, I blow my horn, and I slowly approach and they converge on my car to stop me? How long do I have to wait if they still block mine and a thousand other drivers paths? Are we talking minutes? Hours?
If I end up losing my job could I charge them in small claims court?
Finally what should be the penalty for illegally blocking traffic?
The record pretty clearly shows he felt like he was in danger. As for “actually in danger”, I don’t think we can know for certain what the outcome might have been if he had just remained motionless after the initial fender bender, but give the motorcyclists’ subsequent actions, I think it’s a reasonable belief that he was actually in danger at the point that he punched the accelerator and ran them over.
Suppose all manual controls are removed from self driving cars in the future. A gang surrounds a self driving car, and its algorithm tells it to stop, as it is programmed to not hit pedestrians. The occupants of the car are trapped. How are they going to fix this issue? Are they going to wait for it to actually happen before they program for it?
I’ve seen a few different accounts of that. At least one said it was as the cop was “starting the maneuver” or something like that. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t realize he was initiating a rolling roadblock when he passed him.
Sure. But I dont know if any of her suits have been settled. She apparently is also suing the University for not stopping her from protesting. :rolleyes:
So you basically think it is good government policy to have peaceful protesters be worried about their lives, in order to compel them to get a permit.
That’s fucked up.
The current state of laws adequately addresses issues of negligence and criminal liability for vehicular manslaughter. On the criminal side, a person can make the case of self-defense; on the civil side, liability can be established by weighing the actions of the driver and the person who was killed. I really see zero need to change any laws here.
In fact, I think what I’m reading in the posts that advocate for changing the law is simply a dislike for liberal protesters, with the further implication that if they are killed on the roads, it’s more or less okay because they suck anyways.
I believe the legal standard is whether a reasonable person would feel threatened. I think under the circumstances, a reasonable person would indeed feel threatened by the motorcycle gang. (But I must add that I haven’t spent a whole lot of time examining this particular case, so there could well be other mitigating or aggravating facts that I’m not aware of.)
ETA again: but I must add that being threatened by a motorcycle gang has literally nothing to do with running over unpermitted protesters in the streets. Nothing.
No, the topic is about people blocking the street. The bikers were not blocking the street, and the guy did not drive up to them. They gathered around his vehicle while going down the road and decided to fuck with him, for reasons that are not clear to me. They initiated an incident that turned violent.
By comparison, if there are people (pedestrians) in the street in front of you, for whatever reason, you do not just drive up to them. You stop at a respectful distance and figure out whether you should try to proceed. If you encroach on their space, you can expect them to be pissed at you. Driving into them is not acceptable. And you should learn that your physical space as a vehicle is very different from the physical space of a person. Cars can have a very threatening affect to people standing in front of them.
No. I don’t mind (in fact even kind of like to see) spontaneous protests that don’t take the time to get a permit from the government. I’d like to see those sort of protests follow a couple of basic norms though:
don’t be violent / destructive
don’t play in traffic
If you ignore those norms and end up getting run over by motorists, you’ll not get a whole lot of sympathy from me.
I disagree (and that’s okay: it’s perfectly normal for adults to have points they disagree on, and I like that we can do so respectfully). I feel that the driver in the UCSD incident has not been adequately protected by the current laws.
I think you’re misreading that. I want protesters to stay out of traffic precisely because it’s dangerous and they’re likely to get injured / killed. I’d prefer if that didn’t happen, so I view changes to the law that incentivise them to stay out of traffic as good public policy.
Suppose I am driving to work. I see a bunch of protestors ahead of me blocking the roadway. They have no permit, and they are waving MAGA signs and chanting “Fire Mueller Now!”
I honk my horn, and they don’t move. I flash my headlights, and they don’t move. I proceed ahead very slowly (>1mph). The protesters have plenty of time to get out of the way, and being pushed out of the way at 1mph isn’t going to hurt them.
You should read more about the incident. I don’t think you’ve understood just how close it is to an annoyed driver whose desired path of travel is being blocked deliberately by participants in a rally. From CNN:
As most cars are not equipped with old steam locomotive “cowcatchers”, the problem isn’t the people “pushed out of the way at 1 mph”, it’s the people that end up going under the car or wheels because they can’t get out of the way or get caught.
And if you see them “ahead of you”, stop, turn around, and find a different route.
I’ve seen a number of videos of drivers using some variations of this technique successfully. I don’t necessarily condone it, but the usual outcome does seem to be a driver on his way and no physical harm to anyone.
Not helping. The bikers were out partying and being assholes. If you think all protesters who march in the street and inconvenience you are assholes, I might get it, but I do not believe that to be the case and I am not going to make the character assessment of them from inside my car. I am not going to drive up to them, I am going to keep my distance and probably turn around to seek another route. If it is a one-way street, I will go the wrong way, because no one is going to be going forward anyway. If it is a small highway in remote North Dakota for which an alternate route is a massive detour, I will park right there, get out and try to get them to allow me through. Plowing through a crowd is just fucking asinine, even at 1mph.