A pregnant woman ticketed for driving in the carpool lane will have her day in court next month to argue that her unborn child counts as a second person in the car.
“I understand the reasoning for the HOV lane,” said Candace Dickinson, 23. “But whether my son is in a car seat versus in my stomach, I don’t get it. It’s the same thing.”
The near-full-term Ahwatukee Foothills woman was driving to work on Interstate 10 near Interstate 17 at 6 a.m. last week when a Phoenix police officer pulled her over.
“He asked how many people were in the car with me, and I said, ‘Two’ and he said ‘No, one.’ I said I was nine months pregnant and had my son in the car with me,” she said. “The way the law is written, he can occupy the vehicle without occupying a seat.”
Officer Frank Valenzuela, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, said this is not a common occurrence on Valley freeways. He said the law’s intent is not to include pregnant women, but to increase vehicle occupancy to conserve fuel and reduce traffic.
No comment.
Right on Mom! Stick it to the man!
there was a similar story floating around here (texas) a while back. as that story went, the ticket was dismissed in court – there were two people in the car… but she was fined for admitting to breaking a Texas law that specifically forbids for there to be more than one person behind the wheel at one time. i beleive it was an urban legend… perhaps that is where the lady in your story got the idea.
The cop should have issued a warning and let her go, now we have another waste of time and money with a court case. If it came to a jury and I was on it, I’d agree with the plaintiff – fetus counts. I should have become a lawyer instead of working IT.
What a pathetic ploy:
“If an unborn child can get you in the carpool lane then it must be a person!”
This does bring up an interesting side-bar to the Right to Life issue.
My colleague and I were discussing this…if the judge rules that the fetus doesn’t count as a person in the vehicle until it is born, then isn’t that precedence saying that unborn fetuses don’t count? On the other hand, if the judge rules that the fetus is a person, doesn’t that make precedence saying that abortion is tantamount to murder?
That said though…regardless, the woman knows she did something wrong and tried to pull a fast one. Fine her ass and get it out of court.
G
If the law for that state stipulated that each seat must be occupied by a live human or that 2 or more live humans must be in the vehicle then then this might be a little easier on the poor cop who had to enforce the law. Then, he would only have to take the women in question to a lab and determine the age and species of the fetus (species testing would have to be mandatory in areas with a lot of UFO sightings to avoid the “the Dad might be a Wookie argument” by the prosecution).
Or, in a more sane world, maybe the court hearing the initial case would be able to fast track a request to the legislature to modify the law in a way that would specify what they intended in the first place. Most likely doing this would send legislators and and courts into a whirling dervish state of spouting BS about how “it’s the courts job to determine what the legislators were thinking in the first place”.
On second thought scratch that, it would definitely be easier just to build additional FOV (Fetus Occupied Vehicle) lanes for all highways. Legislatures and Courts trying to work together to solve a simple turf issue would just take too damn long.
Maybe children shouldn’t count at all for the HOV lane. Think about it. The reasoning for the creation of the HOV lane was to remove another driver from the road. Since a fetus can’t drive, it doesn’t count.
Good luck though!
Likewise, if the car had a driver’s side airbag, shouldn’t she be charged with attempted homicide? If the car would have crashed the baby could have died.
Welcome to the “new logic”.
I’m sure she will be able claim temporary insanity from pre-partum depression.
This is hardly new. It’s been brought up in traffic courts since the invention of the HOV lanes. Why is this making news?
The motor vehicle codes in MOST STATES make it clear that the occupant of the seat must be on a seat, and wearing a seatbelt, and breathing air (essentially). Because the inflatable dolls, the vinyl and latex human size “companions”, along with companion dogs all are excluded either literally, or through a lose definition. So, if some screwball judge decided to rule that the fetus was a being, then it’s occuping the same space as the driver, and not wearing a seatbelt. She broke the law. Too bad, but, whatever. She knew it.
As for fetus rights…mmm…I’m not going there.
In California you can’t even GET to see a judge in these kinds of things anymore, it’s all become “citations”. You can request a review, but once denied (and all are) then you must pay the fine BEFORE you can get to the judge, and in almost all cases he’ll rule with the system. Oh, and since these are citations, attorneys don’t get involved.
Wow!
For once California has passed a system that makes sense!
Doesn’t matter, I’m still not going there.
G
This is more than a cleaver excuse; it potentially a right to life issue in disguise. If the fetus is counted as a person within the car, then it also has a right to life elsewhere. Either way the court would rule, it is sure to get organized well funded opposition afterward.
The best thing the traffic court could do is dismiss the case without judgement. else they with see the issue escalate to the Supreme Court.
My comment got sent early and may sound like a repeat of others.
The last sentences should have been that “She likely used the HOV lane deliberately to get caught to make the issue. However,unless it was a 2-seater car, Candace Dickinson may have a different problem if her “person” was not in the rear seat.
> He said the law’s intent is not to include pregnant women,
> but to increase vehicle occupancy to conserve fuel and
> reduce traffic.
Bullshit!! First of all, if that’s the case, then why are zero emission vehicles allow in HOV lanes? Zero emissions has nothing to do with fuel economy per se. If fuel consumption were truly the issue, then vehicles with sufficient fuel economies should all be allowed in HOV lanes.
Secondly, if reduction of traffic were truly the issue (never mind the fact that you are taking a lane away), then it should be required that at least one of the passengers has a valid driver’s license. Mothers carrying crotch spawn are doing absolutely nothing to reduce fuel consumption nor traffic. HOV lanes have to do with illusion of traffic reduction and the reality additional fine production for the states and cities.
CA is probably the most screwed up state of them all when it comes to HOV lanes and southern CA is the worst of that bunch. In the Bay Area, all of the HOV lanes allow for HOV to pass into or out of the HOV lane at any time. For what must be for purely fine producing reasons, southern CA decided that once in a HOV lane, you are stuck until we let you out. Stupid.
I live in phoenix and drive the same interstate as this woman every day and can tell you by the way traffic is, she did it because she wanted to get to work, or home or wherever she was going, not because she was pregnant
This is a weak attempt to circumvent the rules the rest of us have to live by.
If you live in Phoenix, you are very familiar with the brown cloud and the porous air quality. We have little to no functional mass transit. We do have car pool lanes, and the PURPOSE of the HOV lane is for 2 people of driving age or more to share a ride to reduce pollution. She does NOT realize this …apparently.
Now this may not be a perfect solution, but it is the law. Not for a pompous, self righteous person to utilize her unborn child to get out of a traffic ticket. This child must have a great future ahead of him/her self in being used to get out of rules/laws the rest of us must follow.
…a con person by proxy?
It is also not like we have major traffic like other cities. Having lived in Chicago and Los Angeles, you could spend hours stuck in traffic, not the best place for an expecting mother. In Phoenix, unless there is an accident, the traffic is at the very worst stop and go.
She has to obey the same rules the rest of us do and her time is not more important than ours.