Seattle Forrest

Reckless driving vs reckless grammar?

That's not the only parsing, and obviously not the correct one. But it's interesting that a two letter preposition was the only thing preventing this flavor of reckless driving ... in legal terms.

ScottStr

It's a shame that the prosecution didn't produce a better grammar expert. The sentence diagram you posted correctly shows that the expert was wrong. Of course, experts don't get paid to show that there are possibly contradictory explanations.

Captain Blight

I remember some years ago, North Dakota misspelled the chemical name of Ecstasy, thereby rendering E completely legal until such time as someone who could spell was found.

greaterbrown

Wow. That would be even funnier if it wasn't so screwed up.
Barry, "HumanCar" recently did Maryland a huge favor when he clarified summaries written by MVA and DOT regarding our new 3 foot law. There were many ridiculous errors, but the most egregious was their stating that if a motorist was attempting to pass a cyclist on a road that was not wide enough to give 3 feet when passing, then the motorist could just pass anyway with out giving it. Yikes.

CB HI

Hey, even drunk clowns are smarter and more useful than the average sober legislator.

dougmc

I don't know the legal term for it, but I believe there's a general legal principal or something along those lines that says that criminal laws must (should?) be interpreted in the way most beneficial to those accused under them.

The Human Car

Indeed the error is a similar one, our three foot law is an extension to existing law: motorist must "Exercise due care to avoid colliding with any bicycle"
Drop that phrase out of the summary (because it is not "new") and it reads something like "if there is not enough room to pass safely then run the cyclist down" rather then "you can't pass."

contango 

If I wanted to wriggle out of such a law it's exactly what I'd say too.

A person is guilty of reckless driving who fails to stop, when approaching from any direction, any school bus which is stopped on any highway, private road or school driveway for the purpose of taking on or discharging children.

says to me that reckless driving occurs if I fail to stop any school bus, regardless of the direction of approach. Since it's impossible to stop a school bus which is already stopped it seems to me this clause could never catch anybody.

It's a shame the legislators couldn't produce a law that wasn't subject to being picked apart like this. The defence is only doing their job, and the legislators have apparently failed to do theirs.

Pscyclepath

About four years ago one of our legislators was diddling around with the marriage laws trying to pass one of those "defense of marriage" acts, and inadvertently deleted the age restrictions... Infant Marriage was thus legalized in Arkansas for around two years until the General Assembly reconvened to try and fix it ;-)

Febs

The general principle is that penal statutes must be narrowly construed in favor of an accused. Yarborough v. Commonwealth, 247 Va. 215, 218, 441 S.E.2d 342, 344 (1994) ("When a statute is penal in nature, it 'must be strictly construed against the Commonwealth and in favor of an accused'").

Armstrong v. Commonwealth, 36 Va. App. 312, 315, 549 S.E.2d 641, 643 (2001), aff’d, 263 Va. 573, 562 S.E.2d 139 (2002).

Indeed.

Zizka

In another example from Arkansas, my town, Conway, prohibits using bikes on bike and ped paths thanks to leaving off the human powered exception in their definition of vehicle.

Luckily for wheelchair users, someone had the foresight to put an exception in the ordinance for them.

rogwilco

I can't help but think the real clown here is not the person who wrote the law, but the judge who very, very clearly completly misinterpreted the meaning of what the law was trying to accomplish. I don't give a **** what grammar says, it couldn't be more obvious what the sentence means, so as far as I'm concerned letting this guy off the hook is simply a miscarriage of justice.

StanSeven

Exactly. The driver wove his way through stopped traffic to get around a school bus with flashing lights that picked up school kids. His reaction after the court ruling was "this is the greatest day"! He should be in jail.

gcottay

Are traffic laws made and enforced by drunk clowns? Of course not. They are made and enforced by a wide variety of humans. Both functions are improved by the application of reason and understanding. Gratuitous scorn. on the other hand, pollutes productive civil discourse and thus obstructs improvement.

Chris516

I agree. Only a parent should stop a school bus. The state is lucky, that the error is not common knowledge among the general public. Some idiot not in their right mind, might think they could stop a school bus on a whim.

contango 

The trouble with this, while I agree with the sentiment, is that it creates a dangerous precedent. It's clear what the law is trying to achieve here but as soon as we start to say "it's obvious what it means" we open up a whole new can of worms when something does come down to interpretation.

Given it is obvious what the law is intended to achieve it makes it even more unforgivable that the legislators passed the law with such appallingly bad wording. We need legislators to do their jobs properly, not fill the gaps with judges making their interpretations as to what was meant.

dougmc

He did his job.

He should not convict somebody based on the meaning of the law -- only on the actual words of the law. (He can, however, acquit somebody based on the meaning of the law if he deems it to be appropriate.)

It sounds like a miscarriage of justice to me too. But the judge did his job, and I'm glad he did. And I'm glad you're not a judge.

This article is a good read about judges who generally aren't qualified to do their job, who make up the law as they go or enforce the law as they feel it should be rather than as it is written.

Bad laws should be fixed. But until they are, judges can't be enforcing things that aren't actually in the law. (Though in this specific situation, the judge could have convicted him -- after all, the guy did not stop the bus as that interpretation of the sentence required! Though that would be even more absurd, and that's a case where he should use his judgment and just acquit the guy as he did.)

dougmc

Shouldn't only the bus driver stop the bus?

Anybody can stop a school bus (well, force the bus driver to stop it -- it's the bus driver that stops it, or maybe the brakes if you want to get more picky) on a whim -- just walk in front of it. Or stop your car in front of it. You don't need a law that tells you to do this.

Seattle Forrest

Scorn isn't only a natural, appropriate reaction; it's also a good motivator for the people it's being heaped upon.

randya

you think?

DX-MAN

We are beset with three problems here:

1.) Spelling and grammar are barely even being TAUGHT anymore, much less learned.

2.) Laws are being written by incompetent lawyers -- if they WERE competent, they'd be in private practice instead of government.

3.) The incompetence of those lawyers is being manipulated by the competent ones, to our collective detriment.

We need to quit allowing lawyers to write laws, and have plain-speaking people do it. But I won't hold my breath.........

Seattle Forrest

How are ordinary people supposed to know how to obey the law, if it can't be understood without the help of a professional grammar expert?

B. Carfree

Where did you find a sober legislator to do the comparison? Utah?

mikeybikes

If ya' see a big yellow bus stopped in yer road, wait fer it to move.

DX-MAN

Yeah I always thought that was kinda obvious. And all those flashing lights, and a big "STOP"! hanging out in the way; maybe it needs to be mounted lower on the bus.... Nah, these fools would just hit it and sue the school system for their car damages.