Running Over Highway Protesters May Soon Be Legal

A recent fad of protesting on major highways may soon come to an end. A North Dakota bill has been proposed to allow drivers to legally run over anybody protesting on the road.

If you've been caught up in one of these highway protests, you know how extremely inconvenient it is to have nowhere to go for hours, until the police get there to divert traffic to another route. In Minnesota, police are required to do this while the highway is filled with protesters.

North Dakota is trying to pass a bill that would allow a driver to carefully drive through a crowd on the road without getting into legal trouble. The protesting has been an issue in North Dakota because of the Dakota Access Pipeline construction near Standing Rock Indian Reservation. They've been protesting on Hwy 1806 and causing traffic to be re-routed for miles around the area.

Minneapolis was seeing protesting the last couple years for "Black Lives Matter" on various highways including Interstate 94. In 2015 a driver slowly drove his car through the protesters and injured a 16-year old girl. He received a fine of $575 for it.

The bill would be a "North Dakota" specific bill if it passes, but it's likely other states would also attempt to pass their own version of the bill. They are making it clear that it doesn't make it legal for anybody to run down a person on the road, specifically aimed at protesting. Hitting a person crossing the road, or child running into the road would still be an offense.

Source: StarTribune