…you don’t actually need to have driven under the influence. If it’s an illegal substance, metabolites in your blood may suffice whether or not you were impaired at the time you actually did the driving. At least that’s the ruling of a state court of appeals; the Arizona Supreme Court could still reverse it. [John Ross/Reason, Scott Greenfield]
Tagged as:
Arizona,
illegal drugs,
traffic laws
- Tel Aviv: “City Workers Paint Handicap Space Around Car, Then Tow It” [Lowering the Bar]
- Editorial writer has some generous comments about my work on excessive litigation. Thanks! [Investors Business Daily]
- Nuisance payment: Toyota will throw $29 million at state attorneys general who chased bogus sudden acceleration theory [Amanda Bronstad, NLJ]
- “Iowa Woman Who Didn’t Break Allergy Pill Limit Law Charged with Crime Anyway” [Shackford]
- Cutting outlays on the nonexistent census, and other bogus D.C. spending cuts: in the business world, they’d call it fraud [Coyote, Boaz] Skepticism please on the supposed national crumbling-infrastructure crisis [Jack Shafer]
- Tassel therapy: “Lawsuit Claims Dancing in a Topless Bar “Improves the Self Esteem” of the Stripper” [KEGL]
- Was there ever an economics textbook to beat Alchian and Allen? R.I.P. extraordinary economist Armen Alchian, whose microeconomics introductory course for grad students I was fortunate to take long ago [Cafe Hayek, David Henderson, more, more, more, Bainbridge]
Tagged as:
accolades,
allergies,
attorneys general,
strippers and exotic dancers,
Toyota,
traffic laws
- Federal taxpayers via National Cancer Institute grant dished out more than a million dollars to pay for laughable conspiracy-theory report smearing Tea Party [Hans Bader, more, Jacob Sullum on report from Stanton Glantz, whom we've often met before] “Rather than [being] a spontaneous popular phenomenon, opposition to the tea parties was nurtured by the government.” [@RameshPonnuru]
- Ken on why the relentless overuse of the epithet “bullying” gets on his (and my) nerves [Popehat; Clark at Popehat on New York police chiefs who feel bullied because someone won't sell them guns]
- On immigration, advocates of liberty can’t afford to ignore the future-polity angle [Eugene Volokh; Ilya Somin with a response]
- More on that wretched State of the Union retread, the Paycheck Fairness Act [Hans Bader, Ted Frank, 2009 DoL study, earlier here, here, here, here, here, etc.] Other dud SOTU ideas: federally paid universal preschool [Andrew Coulson, related, more, related on minority kids' results, yet more, Neal McCluskey on public infant care, Tyler Cowen] minimum wage hike [Chris Edwards, Veronique de Rugy]
- Woman sues fitness club over “sexually suggestive” exercises [CBS Dallas]
- Silent witness: undeveloped state of law, police, insurance contribute to widespread Russian use of dashboard cams [WaPo]
- Would-be assassin came dressed as postman: Danish free-speech advocate Lars Hedegaard interviewed [Spectator]
Tagged as:
bullying,
Denmark,
guns,
immigration law,
Russia,
traffic laws
- You mean Philadelphia traffic court wasn’t on the up-and-up? [ABA Journal] DUI prosecution in Lafayette Parish, La. had become quite the tidy business [Scott Greenfield]
- Match.com sued after date assault [FindLaw]
- Sweden is at cutting edge of free-market policy innovation [Adrian Wooldridge, The Economist]
- Big victory for Institute for Justice as federal court strikes down new IRS tax preparer rules [Katherine Mangu-Ward] 97% of Chicago tax preparers out of compliance with local licensing regs? [TaxProf]
- A sentiment open to doubt: Heritage claims “there is no ban on same-sex marriage” in any state [Ryan Anderson] Support from PM Cameron, other senior Conservatives instrumental in British passage of same-sex marriage [Peter Jukes, Daily Beast] New beyond-the-culture-wars initiative on marriage from David Blankenhorn and colleagues at Institute for American Values [Mark Oppenheimer, NYT]
- “Why not a waiting period for laws?” [Glenn Reynolds, NY Post]
- As he steps aside, recalling some of the accomplishments of longtime Cato Institute chairman Ed Crane [Cato Policy Report, PDF]
- R.I.P. Maureen Martin, legal affairs fellow at Heartland Institute whose work touched many [Jim Lakely]
Tagged as:
Cato Institute,
judges,
Philadelphia,
same-sex marriage,
Sweden,
traffic laws
- The late John O’Quinn was an Overlawyered regular: “Ex-clients’ complaint vs silicosis lawyers is catalog of misconduct” [Alison Frankel, Reuters; Ted Frank, Point of Law]
- “How Lawsuits Killed an American Icon” [Rocky Flick, CEO, on closure of Blitz gas can plant in Oklahoma; U.S. Chamber's Faces of Lawsuit Abuse, auto-plays video; earlier here, here, here]
- “Angelos seeks to revive more than 13,000 asbestos cases” [Baltimore Sun] Virginia is latest state to wrestle with asbestos causation standard [David Oliver] Asbestos forum-shopping alive and well in Madison County, Ill., with record-breaking 1,563 cases filed last year [Chamber-backed Madison County Record]
- More on why Toyota settled dubious acceleration case [Michael Krauss, earlier]
- Alabama rules brand-name drug manufacturer can be held liable for generic version’s lack of a warning [Weeks v. Wyeth; Meghan McCaffrey, Weil Gotshal Product Liability Monitor; Morrison Foerster client alert; Michael Krauss] Standards of causation in pharmaceutical cases haven’t been loosened as far as in asbestos [Beck, Drug & Device Law]
- From Judge Gladys Kessler, another sweeping ruling against tobacco companies [Brian Wolfman, CL&P]
- In the coming era of driverless cars, better to empower a robotic “intersection controller,” or rely on intelligence distributed among the individual vehicles? [Mickey Kaus, Jack Baruth/Truth About Cars, E.W. Niedermeyer first, second]
Tagged as:
Alabama,
asbestos,
John O'Quinn,
pharmaceuticals,
silicosis,
tobacco,
Toyota,
traffic laws,
Virginia
Politico quotes me on the latest harebrained idea from the U.S. Department of Transportation, known for Secretary Ray LaHood’s crusade against “distracted driving”:
Olson called the idea that law enforcement would be focused on using spotters perched atop overpasses “creepy” and suggested it turns police officers into “peeping toms.”
“We drive under [overpasses], so it’s not a perfect expectation of privacy; but if we saw someone staring down and hoping to look into our laps, we’d think of them as creepy,” Olson said.
Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which has been out front of the effort to curb distracted driving, scoffed at the notion that there is any expectation of privacy in a car.
Earlier here, etc.
Tagged as:
cellphones,
privacy,
traffic laws
Raised on Hoecakes catches a NHTSA impaired-driving program telling a whopper:
“THE DAYS OF BEATING A DRUNK DRIVING ARREST HAVE BEEN RULED EXTINCT….
“If you are arrested, you will be prosecuted and likely lose your license, money and car.”
As Raised on Hoecakes says:
“Cool, huh? Only one problem: it isn’t true. Someone missed the memo telling judges to make arrests for DUI a resulting conviction 100% of the time.” In Florida, to take one state he says is representative, there were 55,722 DUI tickets and 33,625 DUI convictions in 2011, and although not all cases are closed the same year they begin, the estimated conviction rate still must run closer to 60 percent than 100 percent. Nor is it true that all arrests result in prosecution: prosecutors decline to press some charges where they deem the evidence in hand to be weak, and almost everyone, with the possible exception of certain hosts of TV crime shows, agrees that’s as it should be.
I suppose the generous way to interpret untruths like the ones on this poster would be as a fancier way to say, “Don’t drive drunk, you’ll get caught.” But they also send a rather more disturbing message: “If arrested on DUI and you believe the government’s case against you is weak, better not fight, just take a plea. Because it doesn’t matter how strong your defense is, a judge won’t save you.”
Presumably that second message is unintentional. [More: Scott Greenfield]
Tagged as:
advertising,
alcohol,
NHTSA,
traffic laws
- Any dollar figure will do: “Ohio woman sues for $500 billion after her car is towed” [Jalopnik]
- Rabbit-breeding without a license proves costly for Missouri family facing $90K USDA fine [Amy Alkon]
- Per Linda Greenhouse, SCOTUS in Bush v Gore said “this opinion is never to be cited.” Oh? [Ed Whelan, NRO, further]
- Boston loses young innovation-sector workers by overregulating nightlife [Dante Ramos, Globe]
- “Title IX after 40 years” is topic of a discussion and lunch this Wednesday at Cato; “CA Lawmaker Speaks Truths on Title IX, Bashing Ensues” [Deborah Elson, American Sports Council; Chris Norby]
- Department of Justice is conducting “incredibly aggressive” push against local governments under civil rights laws, or so says one supporter [Bagenstos] “School discipline and disparate impact” [John R. Martin, Federalist Society "Engage"]
- Traffic laws changed considerably following the development of the automobile. Something sinister in that, or pretty much what one would expect? [Sarah Goodyear, "The invention of jaywalking," Atlantic Cities]
Tagged as:
Boston,
restaurants,
school discipline,
Supreme Court,
Title IX,
traffic laws
“Issues surrounding liability and law, rather than technology, now appear to be the biggest obstacle to autonomous vehicles.” [Ryan Avent via Alex Tabarrok]
Tagged as:
aviation,
traffic laws
