Running over protesters may soon be legal in North Dakota

[Noradin]

Which part of the word "cause" is difficult for you to comprehend?

Ah, I missed that one, my bad.
How would that one apply to protesters then, though?
They have a "cause".

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Is a cop a pedestrian though? If not, then no, I dont see how this can be used to justify that. A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, a cop at a traffic stop isnt traveling on foot, he is on foot preforming a function of his job. I expect that in the courts cops and other official personal (firefighters, paramedics and hte like) are not considered pedestrian. But This is a similarly non-lawyerly opinion.

Any lawyers around here to address this maybe?

Wouldn't the same logic apply to protesters?
They aren't travelling, they are performing and expressing a political opinion.

[ati87]

If somebody is protesting and blocking a road and you mow them down, you're still liable under this change. Your subject is entirely wrong, you are *absolutely* still responsible and will be pretty fucked.

This just protects people who have hit somebody standing in the road GENUINELY by accident. If you are driving properly and somebody is protesting on an active roadway at their own risk, you are protected if a genuine accident, at no fault of your own, results in you hitting them.

If, however, you're late for work and haven't had your coffee... you can't just plow through the people trying to get another 50 cents an hour, sorry.

Sounds like the same crappy excuse people give with stand your ground to justify murder.

Maybe it's just me but when I drive I actually look at the road and who is on it, sure you have the occasional person that suddenly pups up but just assuming now that when a large group of people protest they don't magically appear

[Noradin]

Incorrect

roads by design, are for cars to travel, not pedestrians.

That's why (outside of "last chance" clauses) people in cars that hit jay walkers rarely face prosecution.

Cars are just tools though, they have no reason to exist on their own.
Thus roads are for people. (I didn't say they are for pedestrians, but pedestrians are people, too.)

And as you have just pointed out there are already laws regarding pedestrians endangering themselves on roads, why the need for new ones that make it permissible to neglegibly disperse capital punishment on them without a trial?

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Well its North Dakota... so I wonder which protesters this is meant for......

People are always most afraid about things they have never seen before.

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And half the people here fail to realize that a bunch of lunatics dancing in the middle of a freeway is also a problem.

There are already laws in place against thing such as this.

[Zephyr Storm]

Good. Some common sense coming back into this country.

There is zero fucking reason to block a road in order to have a protest. If you get ran over doing some dumb fuck thing like that, then it's your own dumbass fault for being where you shouldn't have been in the first place.

You can protest to your heart's content on the side of the road. If you start adversely affecting the rest of society during your temper tantrum, however, you deserve to face the repercussions.

And before some idiot comes in here and says it, no, you don't HAVE to block a road to get your point across. If you have to do that in order to gain any traction, maybe your cause for protesting really isn't important enough in the first place.

[Wells]

If you have to do that in order to gain any traction, maybe your cause for protesting really isn't important enough in the first place.

The Selma Marches took up entire bridges and States did everything they could think of to try to stop them. Were those causes "worthy"? Because most of the same boot licking rhetoric we hear today was the same boot licking rhetoric we heard back then.

[Zephyr Storm]

The Selma Marches took up entire bridges and States did everything they could think of to try to stop them. Were those causes "worthy"? Because most of the same boot licking rhetoric we hear today was the same boot licking rhetoric we heard back then.

Comparing the Selma Marches to the idiocy of most of the protests occurring recently is an insult to the Selma Marches themselves. I wish idiots would stop using this comparison. It just makes them look like ignorant fools and does nothing but degrade the Selma Marches themselves.

[Flarelaine]

protesters being blasted with water hoses because they blocked roads got the people to start caring about said protesters though.

As a side note, blasting people with water hoses in the winter is murder. It has been recorded as a method for bored troopers to kill Jews back in WWII.

[TZucchini]

Again, rights are not absolute.

Just because some people are asking for constraints on freedom of assembly (1st Amendment) (just like you can't yell fire in a crowded place) no one is advocating abolishing them.

Is anyone here claiming that the right to protest should be absolute? I don't think so.

And this really isn't a conversation about rights. It's more of a conversation involving legal liability.

I'm sorry, but if someone is texting while driving and kills a protester who is standing in the road, you shouldn't get off without some fairly serious charges. Texting while driving and standing in the middle of the road are concurrent causes to bodily injury.

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Good. Some common sense coming back into this country.

Why should one persons negligence be absolved just because another person was also negligent.

That's not how the law works in this country. Or any first world country for that matter.

[Ghostpanther]

Is anyone here claiming that the right to protest should be absolute? I don't think so.

And this really isn't a conversation about rights. It's more of a conversation involving legal liability.

I'm sorry, but if someone is texting while driving and kills a protester who is standing in the road, you shouldn't get off without some fairly serious charges. Texting while driving and standing in the middle of the road are concurrent causes to bodily injury.

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Why should one persons negligence be absolved just because another person was also negligent.

That's not how the law works in this country. Or any first world country for that matter.

Well said. I agree.

The root cause of this issue is not doing anything to stop the protesters from blocking traffic on the roads. Allowing drivers to run over them is not the solution. Arrest the ones blocking the roads.

[Shadowferal]

Comparing the Selma Marches to the idiocy of most of the protests occurring recently is an insult to the Selma Marches themselves. I wish idiots would stop using this comparison. It just makes them look like ignorant fools and does nothing but degrade the Selma Marches themselves.

The ignorance comes from those that are clueless idiots about activism.

[Deleted]

Zero fucks given.

These people are impeding the population and that includes medical and emergency workers.

Pretty much this.

If a patient would die in an ambulance because of some trash group blocking the road on purpose, they should all be convicted for manslaughter.

[ItachiZaku]

Cops and construction workers need to watch the fuck out!

[TITAN308]

Is anyone here claiming that the right to protest should be absolute? I don't think so.

And this really isn't a conversation about rights. It's more of a conversation involving legal liability.

I'm sorry, but if someone is texting while driving and kills a protester who is standing in the road, you shouldn't get off without some fairly serious charges. Texting while driving and standing in the middle of the road are concurrent causes to bodily injury.

Thanks for taking my quote completely out of context. It was a direct response to someone sarcastically saying "why have rights at all, we should just kill anyone because reasons".

[Kathandira]

The law does specify that it has to be unintentional. You can't just go run over people.

/thread.

If you have no way to avoid it, then you may be let off tge hook. If you are stopped, and just decide to floor it and plow over a group of protestors, then you may be on the hook.

[TZucchini]

Thanks for taking my quote completely out of context. It was a direct response to someone sarcastically saying "why have rights at all, we should just kill anyone because reasons".

I haven't taken anything out of context. In fact, you just did. No one was questioning why we have rights. And no one was questioning whether or not rights are absolute.

But my overall response is in reference to your first post in this thread: "Zero fucks given etc." Concurrent negligence doesn't become any less concurrent just because someone is blocking the road during a protest. Both parties should be held liable for their actions.

[Maletalana]

protesters may want to think twice about blocking roads in north dakota.

it's almost as if blocking roads was illegal in the first place or some crazy thing like that

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Too many internet tough guys in here to have a useful discussion about the balance between right to protest and right to go about your life inconvenienced.

Can't have a serious discussion when people are cheering running down people in cold blood because "I've got shit to do."

None of you would do this and you know it.

This through and through, however, blocking off a road to bring attention to your cause is obviously a really bad way to do so, as it almost always brings counter-interest, or, a hatred of your group.

maybe if you don't want to be run over, don't stand on the highway where cars drive


way too many people wanting to be seen as helpless victims that need "mah rights to protest", whilst conveniently ignoring *Darwinism*

[Naxere]

I don't know if I'd go that far, but I'd slap harsher punishments on protestors who block interstates or major freeways.

[Al Gorefiend]

The way this bill is worded (from the small little TL;DR OP gave) sounds disastrous. Absolutely disastrous. I'm all for keeping protestors off roadways but mowing them down with vehicles sounds like the worst way to go about it. This is America, tell me with a straight face you aren't going to be hearing stories about rednecks flattening non-congregated pedestrian protestors standing at a crosswalk or along a bike trail holding up a sign they disagree with, then claiming the pedestrian was in the road or something. Even if the courts don't buy it, that's a potentially dead person on ND lawmakers' hands.

[Dextroden]

The way this bill is worded (from the small little TL;DR OP gave) sounds disastrous. Absolutely disastrous. I'm all for keeping protestors off roadways but mowing them down with vehicles sounds like the worst way to go about it. This is America, tell me with a straight face you aren't going to be hearing stories about rednecks flattening non-congregated pedestrian protestors standing at a crosswalk or along a bike trail holding up a sign they disagree with, then claiming the pedestrian was in the road or something. Even if the courts don't buy it, that's a potentially dead person on ND lawmakers' hands.

I don't think this person very much cared about their life to trade it for counterproductive awareness.

[Noradin]

If you have no way to avoid it, then you may be let off tge hook. If you are stopped, and just decide to floor it and plow over a group of protestors, then you may be on the hook.

There are already laws in place about this, why is a new one needed if the old ones aren't enforced?