The Volokh Conspiracy - Mother in Labor Ticketed When Husband Drives in Breakdown Lane:
Mother in Labor Ticketed When Husband Drives in Breakdown Lane:
What a cruel, heartless cop, right? That’s the way the story is written.
But wait. If you read the story carefully, when the cop pulled the husband over, he was attending to a car in the breakdown lane, where the husband was driving illegally (albeit allegedly with the permission of cops he encountered previously). In other words, the husband was endangering the cop’s life. And the couple turned down the officer’s offer of an ambulance. Why? Well, when you get to the last paragraph, you find out that the baby wasn’t born until five hours later. If it’s a true emergency, call 911 and meet the ambulance at the next exit!
As I’ve pointed out before, the fact that a woman is in labor is no excuse for unsafe driving.
The blog entry had to come from a man. Childbirth is quite literally, a life and death situation where an enormous number of things can go wrong for both mother and child - which is why we tend to like to have it happen at hospitals.
This post had to come from a woman. Driving is quite literally, a life and death situation where an enormous number of things can go wrong for both drivers and passengers - which is why we tend to like to have it happen on the road and not the breakdown lane.