The Right to Crash Cars Into People

[Nevilledog]

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ryan cooper
@ryanlcooper
"American conservatives are creating, really, a sort of Second Amendment for cars."

The Right to Crash Cars Into People
How Republicans across the country came to endorse a terrorist tactic against protesters
newrepublic.com
8:29 AM · Apr 24, 2021

https://newrepublic.com/article/162163/republicans-anti-riot-laws-cars

Earlier this week, Florida Republicans enacted a law they claimed would prevent riots in the state. Its real purpose, of course, was to discourage protesting and punish demonstrators. One of the bill’s provisions has received a fair amount of national attention, as it seems to give Floridians permission to attack protesters with their cars. The bill doesn’t exactly make it legal to run someone over, but it does shield drivers from civil liability if they injure or kill protesters on Florida roads.

In isolation, it’s hard to understand the purpose of such a curious provision. What problem does it solve? As the Florida American Civil Liberties Union pointed out, very few recent protests in the state involved violence or even vandalism, and police and prosecutors were already well equipped (some would say, more than well equipped) to handle whatever rioting might occur. If demonstrators blocking roads and snarling up traffic were a serious problem in Florida in need of a legislative remedy, surely thoughtful legislators could come up with a more effective or ethical response than making it less personally risky for people to injure or kill those demonstrators with cars. But efficacy and ethics don’t really seem to be guiding the decisions of Republican-run state legislatures lately.

To understand what’s really behind the bill, recall that it comes less than four years after a 20-year-old neo-Nazi named James Alex Fields Jr. deliberately drove a Dodge Challenger into a crowd of people counterprotesting the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Fields injured scores of people and killed a woman named Heather Heyer. The obvious and immediate response to this intentional attack was nearly universal shock and horror. Fields was charged with murder and convicted. But since just before that attack, and even more so after it, Republican elected officials across the country have been trying to make it easier for certain people to run over certain other people.

Ari Weil, a researcher at the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, counted six states that considered laws shielding drivers who attack protesters in 2017, but most of those “hit and kill” bills (as the ACLU refers to them) went nowhere. It took a few more years for the right-wing propaganda apparatus to fully numb conservative consciences, and prepare them to openly endorse an idea as plainly depraved as this one. In the meantime, the car attacks kept coming: In 2020, Weil tracked “72 incidents of cars driving into protesters across 52 different cities,” over the span of just over a month. The online far right memed about running over demonstrators regularly, and cops openly encouraged it in social media comments. Cops also, in cities such as New York and Detroit, participated in the practice themselves. In Boston last year, Police Sergeant Clifton McHale was recorded on a police body camera bragging about hitting demonstrators with a police cruiser. His year of unpaid suspension is apparently up, and Eoin Higgins reports that he is back on duty.

*snip*

[SoonerPride]

1. Watch them freak out when someone runs down MAGAt

Because that’s coming.

Probably.

[jimfields33]

3. I think a bill simply banning protests on major highways would be adequate.

It doesn’t make sense to stand on highway 95 for example when cars are going 90MPH.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

6. Lunatics who walk and block interstate traffic

Are basically putting their own lives in danger.

[NCDem47]

5. My first thought as well.

Not really thinking it through are they?

Then they’ll make exclusions and caveats.

[PJMcK]

2. Let's look at Florida

1. A motorist is allowed to commit murder to break up a peaceful protest.

2. The state government denies established science and allows businesses to open in the middle of a global pandemic.

3. Orlando, that is, Disney/Universal/SeaWorld. That's entertainment?

Sorry, Florida DUers, but your state isn't too appealing.

[jimfields33]

4. Unfortunately it is.

Millions move here yearly and millions more visit. I wish what you said was reality.

[sop]

8. "Millions move here yearly..."

Florida is being loved to death, and by the wrong kinds of people.

[EX500rider]

14. "Sorry, Florida DUers, but your state isn't too appealing"

Yes. it's horrible, stay away.

[Hoyt]

7. Not sure legislation needed, but I've read these laws give immunity if it's "unintentional."

Seems that under current law, if someone purposely plows into to protestors, they are in deep chit. You gotta be a vile POS to pass a law that makes in OK to purposely kill people.

If it is unintentional -- like someone rounds a blind corner and protestors just layed/laid down in the road -- I'd have a hard time convicting someone of murder or something. Reckless driving maybe, manslaughter maybe.

[WHITT]

9. Sounds Like

some folks may have to start shooting at these "unintentional" protest rammers. They can tell the cops they assumed it was a domestic terrorist attack, it was self-defense and defense of others. Do that a few times and the stupidity will cease.

A Catch-22 for the RightWing.

[NotASurfer]

21. Well, Florida is one of those "stand your ground" law states

I think, if the protesters felt threatened by a vehicle, Florida law allows them to open fire first and claim self-defense

Florida QOP did not think this through. That requires too much...thought

[Ron Green]

10. We've always normalized driver comfort,

often at the expense of pedestrian safety - both through road design and car design. These red-state moves to legalize murder with a vehicle is kind of a natural extension of that.

Anytime car drivers are comfortable in the presence of people walking and on bikes is deadly.

[jimfields33]

12. Roads are for cars

I can’t believe they allow bike on roads. I’d love to see how any are killed yearly. I bet it’s larger then needs to be. Make bike paths. Bikes were never supposed to be rode on roads.

[Ron Green]

13. You make my point.

You say that “roads are for cars,” which is true because since the 1920s automobile associations and lobbies have taken the streets away from people (who had used roads for hundreds of years) and given them to cars.

Bikes were on roads before cars existed; paved roads were developed for them.

Your view about bikes on roads is shared by most people, because that’s the world they grew up in. It’s normalized. Roads and cars, especially in recent years, have been made to maximize speed and comfort for drivers, and to convince most people, including yourself, that this is how the world should be.

[jimfields33]

15. I'm sure it's a bias on my part.

But I’m just stunned the government and American population allows or looks the other way when bike riders are killed. Congress should save lives of bikers and pass a law that bans bikes from roads and a law that requires bike paths.

[Ron Green]

17. I agree. And I've been to Amsterdam too.

Our DNA in this country didn’t allow us to resist the car-based world, so it’s just what we’ve got.

Also gas is still way too cheap, but not many people even on DU will agree with that!

[jimfields33]

20. Only because it hurts the working poor

The rich and six figure income people could care less what the price of gas costs.

[EX500rider]

16. "Your view about bikes on roads is shared by most people"

It's simple physics, a 3,000 lb car going 40mph mixes poorly with a 30 lb bike going 15mph.

[Ron Green]

18. The physics is a fact. The view, shared by most people, is that

moving a big, dangerous machine in public ought to be convenient and comfortable.

[Zeitghost]

19. Murder?

Murder has not been legalized anywhere. This law has to do with civil suits over unintentional acts. It might not be a good law, but let's be honest about it.

[tanyev]

11. You know, that doesn't seem very pro-life.