Aggressive Driving as a Violation (S 556)

This legislation would add five driving violations to the statute that imposes fines on people who engage in "aggressive driving." We argued that this bill be amended to delete one of those violations: "obedience to police officers, § 31-12-3," citing to a broadly-worded "obedience" statute. If this law is to punish individuals for engaging in aggressive driving, then the underlying offenses should, at a minimum, involve driving. But, that is not necessarily the case with this particular offense. We are also concerned that the cited "obedience" statute is too broadly worded and could easily be misused as a catch-all to bump a person into the category of having engaged in two forbidden actions that turn conduct into "aggressive driving." This legislation died in committee.