Edit: Did you even bother to read the law before you commented?, the first fkin line, and (b), Line (1) burden of proof is on the defendant, not the prosecution, it will be judged by his peers. The (2) will fail if protestors are on allowed/blocked road ways and will only apply if protestors are illegally on non-permitted road ways.
(1) the person operating the motor vehicle was exercising due care; and (2) the person injured was blocking traffic in a public right-of-way while participating in a protest or demonstration. (b) This section does not affect a person's liability for an injury caused by grossly negligent conduct.
what else can I google for you? While I agree the "whole state" is a really big brush to be painting with, it's not an inaccurate description of what the state legislature is doing.
I don't think asking for clarification was an unreasonable ask. Too many people today use emotional charged rewordings to describe things. It's honestly hard at times to know what people are referring to anymore.
You can dismiss anything because no proof, or you can prove to yourself yay/nay. It took seconds to find the specific texas legislation. It's not like it was hidden. You can then come back and say, "hey i tried looking for this in a websearch, but it was too muddled. got something more definitive?" vs "i don't believe you so the onus on you."
That aside, people supporting their own claims with evidence provides a whole host of secondary benefits. It makes it more clear makes it more clear who is claiming what, it pushes back somewhat on the problem of "it takes an order of magnitude more effort to produce bullshit than to refute it", and it prevents some obnoxious debate tactics that reduce discussion quality.
To be honest it don't understand why anyone would advocate any other convention on a discussion board. It seems super short sighted to me.
If the sources they provide are biased and therefore suspect, that is a separate concern that can then be addressed. But having some source for your claims is table stakes for an intelligent discussion.
> (1) the person operating the motor vehicle was exercising due care; and
That law clearly states twice that "due care" needs to be taken otherwise it's not applicable. So compare and contrast this with the original claim by the parent commenter:
> legal for car drivers to mow down pedestrian protesters
I call bullshit on that. Thanks for the link.
similarly:
>(b) This section does not affect a person's liability for an injury caused by grossly negligent conduct.
That is to say, you're not allowed to just mow them over.
Sources are nice not because they magically add quality to a post, but because you can check them for yourself.
>I call bullshit on that. Thanks for the link.
Sometimes hyperbole just isn't the right thing, but I seriously doubt the original poster honestly believes laws were created that allowed for mowing down of citizens willy nilly. Pedantic people go nuts and throw out the rest of the conversation on a caveat rather than keeping focus on the discussion. Laws were written that allows for a defense after running people over with your car. There's plenty to be left to the interpretation of lawyers to argue and judges to decide.
It basically says if someone is protesting in the middle of the road and a driver taking reasonable precautions hits them they aren’t liable.
Seems entirely reasonable to me.
No, in order to stop protesters from blocking traffic, then that is all the police need to do. The protestors can always protest in a park or literally anywhere other than in the middle of roads.
In a just society, some group's right to protest does not take priority over everyone else's right to travel and use roads. Roads do not belong to activists, and no activist group has a right to shut down public roads without arranging this with police ahead of time so that appropriate detours can be made for normal traffic.
Sorry, but no civil rights gains were made as a result of people harassing pedestrians and motorists. They were made despite these selfish tactics, not because of them. These types of tactics significantly set back the civil rights movement in the U.S. just as the watts riots set back African American rights.
Always be suspicious when an angry mob tries to justify antisocial behavior with claims of "the greater good". It is never about the "greater good", but is always about theft, domination, and harassment, and it always ends up hurting your cause.
> protests “causing some degree of inconvenience are to be expected and, up to a point, tolerated” in a democratic society that recognised the right to freedom of assembly.
(but in this particular case, the protesters went too far by breaching earlier court orders.)
Whether it ends up hurting their cause in this case remains to be seen. They were trying to be jailed before the COP conference began, but despite continued illegal protest nothing much happened until afterwards.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/17/nine-insulat...
This is why most areas in the U.S. which are concerned about rule of law (some areas have "progressive prosecutors" that put activism above the rule of law) do not allow protestors to do this, and they make sure that the legal code discourages things like blocking highways or shutting down traffic.
> I'm glad you agree
Please don't assume my opinion. I tried to keep my comment neutral.
You can't imagine ever being in a position of non-privilege and needing to protest in order to be treated fairly, can you?
> It was introduced in response to a widely publicized incident in Tulsa last May when a pickup truck drove through a crowd that had gathered on an interstate to protest the police killing of George Floyd.
> The truck, which was pulling a horse trailer, hit and injured three people, including a 33-year-old man who was left paralyzed from the waist down after falling from an overpass.
> The Tulsa County District Attorney's Office announced in July it would not press charges against the driver, writing in a memo that he, his wife and two children were all "in a state of immediate fear for their safety" and had been the victims of a "violent and unprovoked attack by multiple individuals who unnecessarily escalated an already dangerous circumstance by obstructing an interstate highway."
I, however, don't know much about the specifics of the case in order to have an opinion about what the DA did. My only opinion is that the new laws are risky, as anyone can claim they were scared for their lives, especially in places where black people are considered 'scary'. I'm not a law expert but I'd be willing to bet that if a black dude ran over a pack of armed proud boys would have resulted in a completely different law. And for anyone asking why I say that, look up the Mulford Act.
Your argument is disingenuous.
>How is it possible to kill someone with your car while exercising "due care"?
It is extremely easy to kill someone with a 2 ton piece of metal traveling 70+ miles an hour.
Surely, even if you don't believe a protestors has ever been on a low visibility road, you can understand that they could be. There are limitations to how fast cars can react to pedestrians being where they aren't supposed to be.
You say that as if it's uncommon for protesters to be protesting on non-permitted roadways. I think it's quite common.
Also, is there a difference between being "illegally on non-permitted road ways" and jaywalking?
If so, could the protestors then start shooting the driver in for of self defense?
Even if the law does not exist could the protestors could use self defense to shoot the driver anyway?