The Laws Giving People the Right to Crash Cars into Demonstrators

For reference, here's the actual text from the Oklahoma law: http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20ENR/hB/HB...

A motor vehicle operator who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual shall not be criminally or civilly liable for the injury or death, if:

1. The injury or death of the individual occurred while the motor vehicle operator was fleeing from a riot, as defined in Section 1311 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma Statutes, under a reasonable belief that fleeing was necessary to protect the motor vehicle operator from serious injury or death; and

2. The motor vehicle operator exercised due care at the time of the death or injury.

Here's the Florida law, though I'm not sure which part(s) to quote: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/1/BillText/er/PDF

As somebody who has seen first hand people dragged out of their cars and nearly killed, I’m cool with this.

“Portland police said they received a report around 10:30 p.m. of protesters chasing a truck a few blocks from the downtown federal courthouse. The driver crashed and was then assaulted, authorities said.

Video posted online of the incident showed the man sitting in the street next to the truck. A crowd gathered around him and repeatedly punched and kicked him in the head until he was bloody and unconscious. It wasn't immediately clear what led to the crash or the confrontation.

Witnesses told police the man had been helping a transgender female who had an item of hers stolen, and he was dragged out of the car and beaten by nine or 10 people.” https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2020/aug/17/portland-proteste...

I’m having a hard time settling on how I feel about this law. On the one hand, I recall too the images of drivers being dragged from their cars, and the protestors stopping and potentially harming (I.e.late for work) innocent people. I think blocking the roads is bad and creates unnecessary tension and animosity. On the other hand, driving over them is not an option anyone would completely endorse, and I worry this will lead to some idiot assuming he can plow with impunity.

Arresting the protestors is not feasible. There’s no law short of a Berlin style death strip that will prevent protestors from encroaching on roadways. So a law that gives some cover to motorists who, without malice or intention, hit a protestor.

They may not be immune from civil suit, and there should be necessitated to first find if the driver was truly accidental, or, in fear of their life.

It’s not an easy solution to find.

*Edited for grammar and spelling.

Right now there are three comments here. One denying the agency of drivers who kill people, one describing protests as "terrorizing" and celebrating the legalization of manslaughter, and one describing Democrat mayors as "leftists" (which they are not by any stretch of the imagination) and implying the mayor of Portland isn't allowing the police to "handle downtown riots" (which is easily disproven by watching even a few seconds of the videos of protests in that city) while asserting that drivers who crashed cars into protestors are justified in believing they would be "pulled from their vehicle and possibly killed" (a thing that hasn't happened) and that SF and Portland are "lawless" cities.

If you don't hear the dogwhistles, maybe you've just gone deaf from the constant exposure. But even without those it should be obvious that there are three things going on here:

1) People are blatantly and knowingly lying about what happened at the various protests over the past year to create a boogeyman to justify the deliberate attacks on protestors using cars (which prior to the Unite the Right rally was exclusively seen as an Islamist terrorist tactic).

2) People are conflating different scenarios involving drivers running over protestors ("innocent" drivers taking a "wrong turn" and being confronted by an "angry mob" and panicking; police officers intentionally crashing through a group of people rather than backing off and taking a detour as a show of force; white supremacists intentionally crashing cars into groups of people as an act of terrorism; etc).

3) People are creating a false narrative of "leftist" officials conspiring with criminals while "concerned citizens" flee the chaos as the police stands idly by doing nothing (suggesting the solution to the "lawlessness" is more enforcement, cracking down harder on protestors, further radicalizing them rather than addressing the underlying injustices that caused the unrests in the first place).

Note that this isn't a matter of opinion. These claims are factually wrong. These lies are knowingly spread. Describing protests where the police routinely shot out protestors' eyes, literally covered parts of the city in tear gas for weeks and arrested and attacked clearly identifiable professional journalists including TV camera teams, as "lawlessness" is not just a misunderstanding, it's a call for violence.

If there wasn't tons of videos o f protestor being assholes for the "cause" i.e. blocking neighborhood roads to people living there or attacking people in cars then 100% there ought to be some law protecting those drivers.

Running people over? I highly doubt that's the intent of said law.

Terrorizing inside places designated for high-safety-risk public conveyances of people is a bad thing.

So we now have laws against that.

I must be overlooking things here. Why is that not a good law? And how is that not making it safer for public conveyances such as roads, highway, freeway, and parkway.

There you go, I didn't think I'd live to see the day driving like in Carmageddon becomes legal