So tell me...this new city rule about not standing in streets...good or bad.

[madfloridian]

Or somewhere in between. It just seems odd to me. I don't stand in streets anyway, unless it is on quiet backstreets with little traffic talking to neighbors.

Just seems odd.

City Likely to Beef Up Street Safety

City Attorney Tim McCausland is changing the ordinance prohibiting solicitation on public roads and medians to what he now calls a public safety ordinance. It prohibits anybody from standing on a street or median, with a few exceptions, such as public safety workers.

..."Commissioner Justin Troller asked whether the new rules would prohibit cheerleaders on a median from promoting a high school car wash. Yes, it would, McCausland said.

The ordinance also applies to on-street panhandling. McCausland said the old ordinance prohibits solicitation on city streets but it begs the question of what solicitation is and calls for a lengthy definition.

"Say a guy stands on the median with a sign that says 'Save the Whales,' " McCausland said. "Is that soliciting?"

Violating the new ordinance carries a maximum penalty of a $500 fine and six months in jail.

It could be used to disperse groups of people hanging out on residential streets.

Why do this? Is it about stopping panhandling, or about just having power? Panhandling goes on at the public library on the building property, but it is not in the street.:shrug:

Carwashes are popular fundraising tactics.

Many neighborhoods have street parties occasionally.

Where do you draw the line?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Whatever happened to Freedom of Assembly?

You remember, the right to peacefully assemble...

Sounds like a back-door assault on our Bill of Rights...

x(

[madfloridian]

2. I read it this morning, it has bothered me all day.

Trying to figure out why in the world they would do this?

[2KS2KHonda]

20. Well, for what it's worth, most communities have laws against "loitering"

which can mean pretty much what they want it to. Been that way for ... more or less forever...
:shrug:

[EFerrari]

3. If you can't stand in the street, isn't that a little like being incarcerated?

Next, we're going to need passes to leave our homes. :scared:

[TrogL]

4. I have a bad hip

If it's acting up, I stop on the street to let it settle.

This is now illegal?

[DaveJ]

5. It seems quite obvious to me -- people shouldn't stand in the street

Streets are for cars, not for people. I don't know why that would be controversial. Not sure about other neighborhoods, but we have panhandlers, newspaper salesmen, prostitutes, you name it standing in the middle of busy intersections. I rarely drive, but it bugs the hell out of my wife who has to commute and constantly has people walking up to her car window. Plus there's the safety issue. If they get hit who's at fault? And why should that be a question anyway-- they should be standing in the middle of the road in the first place.

This isn't some conspiratorial attempt to block our freedom of assembly but just common sense -- people should not stand in the middle of the road -- I'm surprised if this isn't already a law.

[EFerrari]

7. Isn't obstructing traffic already an infraction where you live?

Why the need for even more restriction? :shrug:

[DaveJ]

8. Do you enjoy swerving to avoid hitting people all the time?

I guess that isn't a problem where you live, but it is hazardous to have to constantly avoid hitting people standing in the middle of the road.

Most of those people are there for their own self interest, make no mistake. The panhandlers make more money panhandling that most the drivers do.

But it's just common sense, even if people are there for a benevolent purpose, it's crazy to stand in the middle of the road with cars -- CARS are lethal weapons coming within inches of hitting people.

[EFerrari]

9. My point was, aren't there already laws on the books about being in traffic?

I'm not advocating for people to play chicken with cars. :)

/grammar

[DaveJ]

10. Honestly, I don't know what laws are already there

Someone standing on the yellow line might not be technically considered 'obstructing traffic' but it still presents a safety hazard.

So yes, that should also be prohibited.

Most drivers don't enjoy driving. Many have horrendous tiring commutes that already include enough hazards, without having to avoid these silly jerks standing in the middle of the road.

[madfloridian]

11. Obstructing traffic is already a crime....

That is why I am trying to figure this out.

[EFerrari]

12. Is there a lot of panhandling there?

About three years ago, there was a similar proposal here.

[DaveJ]

13. Standing on the yellow line might not be 'obstructing traffic'

...but it's still a safety hazard. I'm actually fearful that my wife will accidentally hit one of these solicitors one day. Not just her but anyone. If someone hits one of these jerks they'll be affected by it for the rest of their lives.

If you are concerned about people soliciting for charities in the middle of the road (most aren't there for charity but their own profit), I'm sorry but I think there are better ways to earn money for charity than standing in the middle of the road risking getting hit by cars. Really, I'm sorry if that's a shock but people can donate money in whatever fashion the wish but being coerced by someone standing in the middle of the road is unnecessary.

[EFerrari]

14. I would think it is obstructing traffic because you're blocking

drivers' field of vision, for one thing.

[crimsonblue]

6. 6 months in jail?

Are you fucking kidding me? I think we can all safely assume that the police department will never abuse this new civil liberty restriction.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Any links to the actual wording?

The report sound like either it's an incredibly dumb and restrictive law that could be abused by the police, or it'll be unenforceable.

What if you get out of a car, and wait to cross the road?

What if you're standing between parked cars?

The 'could be used to disperse groups of people hanging out on residential streets' sounds like they want an excuse for police to tell people what to do, whether or not they're obstructing anyone.

[KharmaTrain]

16. Standing In Those Intersections Are Dangerous...

A charity we're involved with used to do stoplight fundraising once a year...no more. And it's not because of any law or even insurance...it's downright dangerous. Several people last year were nearly run down (on purpose) by asshats who thought it was "funny" to watch them get out of the way of several tons of steel flying at them at 55 MPH.

Methinks this is also a law targeted at a rise in panhandling at stop lights. I can usually judge how poor the economy is when I see a homeless person working the intersection of the nearby interstate. Lately I've seen several work the same corner...a real sad sight and an awful way to live. I'm betting some of those out there are Iraqi vets as well.

[Fumesucker]

17. Anything dangerous should be illegal..

That seems to be the mentality these days.

The fact that life is a terminal condition seems to escape a lot of people.

[RNdaSilva]

18. Big Brother is growing...

exponentially.

[warren pease]

19. Probably provides a legal basis to deny permits for protests and marches...

... unless the marchers are wearing robes and white cone-shaped dunce caps.

All this crap is just a big exhibition of unrestrained power designed to stifle dissent by intimidating and marginalizing anyone to the left of Mukasey, and demonstrate that there are no longer any limits on what law enforcement can do to make life miserable for anybody whose looks they don't like.

Kind of like the new DHS laptop confiscation program. The Bushies seem like they're now determined to fight Al Qaeda on the hard drives and wireless ports of American laptops. Any outrage is silenced by appeals to the sacred cow of "national security" and overruled by the fantasy requirements of the bogus "war on terror." I honestly have no idea how much more of this fascist shit Americans will swallow before they finally reach their personal limits.

I thought two stolen elections, two bogus wars, the complete unraveling of the 9/11 cover story and with it their entire justification for empire expansion and domestic repression, an official policy that encourages torture, stealing from the lower 99 percent to further enrich the biggest thieves of all, militarized cops, corporate domination over the individual, treating returning Iraq vets like shit and sentencing them to secondary infections at the privatized VA, turning the US into a giant third world country, eliminating decent jobs, 50 million people with no access to health care, watching the dollar become a joke currency, actually threatening nu-ku-lur war...

I would have thought that hundreds of these little hints that the Bushies are absolutely fucking insane mass murdering ecocidal thieves whose only motivator is the continuous acquisition of limitless sums of money and then abusing the power it buys.

Maybe if they get their computers stolen, their cell phones confiscated, their Gameboys disappearing into the back room, their iPods ripped off -- maybe that would jolt them into the present tense.

Nah...


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