Q: Okay, here’s a hypothetical scenario: I’m driving down a road with a double yellow center line, when a kid chasing a ball runs into the street and my only way to avoid him is by going into the other lane. Obviously I swerve to avoid the kid, but is it legal to break the law to avoid a crash?
A: Back in 1984, the Ghostbusters responded to paranormal events in their Ectomobile, a 1959 Cadillac ambulance conversion, modified for busting ghosts. The moment they got their first call the Ectomobile rolled out of the converted firehouse, siren whining and blue lights flashing. And even though the siren is only allowed on authorized emergency vehicles and the blue lights are limited to law enforcement vehicles, that’s not what got the Ghostbusters in trouble.
Maybe the police in Ghostbusters didn’t take action on the blue lights and siren because they were grateful that these paranormal scientists were ridding the city of ghosts. Maybe they didn’t take action because it’s a fictional movie. My point here is that the police could have issued the Ghostbusters a ticket, but they didn’t.
With most traffic laws, the police can exercise discretion in choosing when to enforce the law. As an example, I don’t know anyone who’s received a speeding ticket for driving one mile an hour over the speed limit. The law states that “no person shall drive a vehicle on a highway at a speed in excess of such maximum limits,” but police consistently choose not to enforce one mile-per-hour speed violations.
The laws aren’t suspended in the moments leading up to a potential crash, but when considering enforcement, police look at the totality of the circumstances. If you take legitimate action to avoid a crash, and that action includes something that is a violation of the law (like driving over the curb or crossing a double-yellow line) and your action prevents a crash, an officer is under no obligation to take enforcement action.
While there’s no overarching statute that gives drivers permission to break laws to avoid a crash, there are a couple that seem to permit it in narrowly defined situations. When passing a slow-moving vehicle on a two-lane road, you’re allowed to briefly exceed the speed limit as necessary to pass safely. And the section of laws about pedestrians states that, “Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this chapter every driver of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian,” which is kind of like saying that avoiding a crash with a pedestrian is more important than all the other rules of that road at that moment.
Even if it’s not stated blatantly, these two laws get at the core purpose of traffic laws: keeping people safe on the roads. We have speed limits because faster speeds increase the frequency and severity of a crash. But if briefly speeding makes passing safer, the law is okay with it. We have double yellow centerlines to warn us that it’s an unsafe place to pass, but if you cross them to avoid hitting the hypothetical kid chasing a ball, you’ve achieved the fundamental goal of traffic law.
And no, nothing I’ve written here gives you permission to attach blue lights and a siren to your old Cadillac and run around the city trying to capture ghosts. But if there ever comes a time when we need that service, I know who to call. The theme song has been stuck in my head since the 80s.
That law you have in Wa. That allows briefly speeding to make passing safer is a slippery slope and I can imagine courts are having lots of trouble defining briefly a nd speed without physical #s attached. On another note , I was passed by a semi one time and could here and see that he had a loose wheel and could have sped up to communicate the problem with hand signals, to avoid a serious hazard. However I was traveling the speed limit, and feard getting a citation if I sped up knowing that Enforcing the speed limit is the Holy grail of law enforcement in North America and I was realatively sure that neither police nor judge would understand and I wouldn’t be able to avoid points and fines and raised insurance rates. In many cases like this it is a shame but maybe it has to be this way until we can better educate lawmakers and Law enforcement by verbalizing driving as you are doing with your writing
I have had students drive way too close to a pedestrian or cyclist because they did not want to cross a solid center line, and told them that in those situations the preservation of life and limb supersedes the no passing zone law. And I have personally had to exceed the speed limit occasionally while merging onto the interstate when that was the only alernatitive to coming to a complete stop and waiting for a sufficient gap in traffic. Again, the core purpose being keeping all road users safe.
Yes Alan that brings up an interesting question. What is the speed limit on an entrance ramp? Here where I’m located there is as street that turns into an entrance ramp. The speed limit is posted 30 mph on that street. Where does that 30 end and shouldn’t I be trying to match the known speed of 65mph on the highway I’m entering, also this highway has had construction where the speed limit was changed , and could be changed at any time to whatever. So there you are . Law enforcement got you and judges will go along with them most times. It’s a matter of not knowing driving well enough, because of lack of experiance.