Police in West Virginia may no longer issue tickets to motorists for failure to signal without also showing another vehicle may have been affected by the maneuver, according to a ruling issued Monday by the state supreme court. Justices took up the issue in the context of a June 25, 2006, traffic stop in which West Virginia State Trooper C.T. Kessel pulled over Chad R. Clower on US-50 in the city of Romney. According to Kessel, the road was deserted that night when he saw Clower’s car two full city blocks ahead. After Clower made a right-hand turn without signaling, Kessel pounced. At the time, Clower was neither speeding nor weaving and Kessel had noted nothing unusual about the man’s driving beyond the lack of a signal. In the course of the stop, however, Kessel noticed that Clower’s eyes were “glassy” and he immediately suspected the man had been driving under the influence of alcohol.
Clower, in fact, has a glass eye. But because he blew .18 on a breathalyzer, Clower was charged with DUI and the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspended his license. Clower appealed and the high court limited itself to considering only the question of whether Kessel was justified in initiating the traffic stop that night. The DMV argued that the law is the law and no exception is made in the turn signal statute for turns made on deserted roads.
“Any stop or turn signal when required herein shall be given either by means of the hand and arm or by a signal lamp or lamps or mechanical signal device,” the code under which Clower was charged, 17C-8-9, states.
Clower countered that the signal law must be read within the context of another provision covering turns which does allow for exceptions.
“No person shall so turn any vehicle without giving an appropriate signal in the manner hereinafter provided in the event any other traffic may be affected by such movement,” West Virginia Code 17C-8-8(a) states.
The supreme court agreed that this provision must be read in combination with the signal statute.
“It is clear that the legislature sought to require a motorist to warn others of the motorist’s intent to make a turn,” Justice Menis E. Ketchum wrote for the court. “It is equally clear that the legislature understood that in some situations a turn signal would serve no purpose and the legislature specifically defined such a situation as being when ‘no other traffic may be affected by the movement.’
“A clear example this latter situation is where a driver is on an isolated country road, with no other cars or pedestrians in sight, and the driver turns at an intersection without using a turn signal. A driver in such an example clearly would not have violated W.Va. Code, 17C-8-9 as there was no other person who could have benefited from a turn signal.”
Since the trooper had been at least a block away by the time that the turn was completed, the court found that there was no way that the trooper could have been affected either by the turn itself or the lack of a signal. For that reason, the court found no crime had been committed and the trooper had no business pulling over Clower.
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a noise?
There’s so much wrong with this decision that I don’t know where to start. But I’ll try anyways:
* If there’s no one else on the road, what’s the point of staying between the lane markers? Stopping at red lights? Driving at an appropriate speed.
* The guy blew 0.18 on the breathalyzer?
What this allows, basically, is drunks to act like drunks as long as there’s no one around who might misinterpret their lack or misuse of signalling, excepting of course the police, who’s job it is to look for people driving contrary to the law.
So, it takes a trip to the state Supreme Court to determine that “in the event any other traffic may be affected by such movement” means “in the event any other traffic may be affected by such movement”.
I think I’m in the wrong racket.
Signals are NEVER optional, even in West Virgina. This is terrifying!
What this allows, basically, is drunks to act like drunks as long as there’s no one around who might misinterpret their lack or misuse of signalling.
If the state doesn’t like it, they should make their statutes consistent. That’s the issue here.
A lot of good, coherent legal decisions end up helping a dirtbag who benefited from a legal error. Miranda was one of them; this is another. No alleged violation, no probable cause; no probable cause, no reason for the stop; no stop, no arrest.
@ psarhjinian :
I agree with you in that:
a)The guy was legally drunk. The idea that he shouldn’t have been pulled over should be eclipsed by that fact.
b)You should still follow the rules of the road, deserted or not. You never know when another car or a pedestrian may appear.
However, I don’t see a problem with this ruling. A turn signal is there to indicate to other people your intent to turn. If nobody is there to see it, no big deal.
Well I guess they’re going to have to go back to the tried and true “your license plate light is out” excuse.
No, No, No! People need to get into the habit of using them all the time, just like they need to get into the habit of bucking up even if they are just going around the block. They are barely used as it is!
I even wrote a blog entry about the lack of signaling:
http://carsandcameras.blogspot.com/2009/04/turn-signals-still-come-standard-on.html
It’s a good legal decision that’s the outcome of contradictory laws.
“No person shall so turn any vehicle without giving an appropriate signal in the manner hereinafter provided in the event any other traffic may be affected by such movement,” West Virginia Code 17C-8-8(a) states.
Hopefully, the above will be rewritten and the italicized portion will be dropped. By their very nature, signals are required to indicate a driver’s action to other traffic, both seen and unseen. This makes turn signal violations nearly unenforceable, since the logical question at trial would be, “Where’s the other driver that was affected by my client?” Unless it was an officer or another party involved in an accident caused by the non-signaler, it’d be hard to answer that crucial question.
Mr. Clower’s attorney earned his keep, and the court did its job. Now it’s up to the legislature to fix the law so this loophole is removed.
If the state doesn’t like it, they should make their statutes consistent. That’s the issue here.
Legal writing really does suffer from these kinds of logic errors. It’s hard to write (in English, anyway) in a way that’s both unambiguous and internally consistent.
Law. The greatest logic bomb ever developed.
superbadd, the point of rules like this is to make sure the police have probable cause for pulling people over, arresting them, etc. It’s unfortunate that the factually guilty get away with stuff because of these rules, but it’s rather difficult to imagine a system that protects the rights of the innocent and yet is easily overridden in the event that the police feel that the guy is actually guilty.
This decision isn’t about the merits of signaling, it’s about the court correctly interpreting the applicable laws, which they did.
I signal all of the time, including parking lots and private drives, because I want to do all I can to safely communicate my actions to others, whether I see them or not. Regardless of the law, not signaling because you don’t see anyone in your area is unwise.
Must be from California. Out here, they saw off the turn signal stalk to prevent anyone from using them.
Rhode Island driving test:
When a motorist’s right turn signal illuminates it means…
A) They’re turning right
B) They’re turning left
C) Nothing
Correct answer: C
California has this basic law too. The problem is that all too often somebody doesn’t see the vehicle that would be affected. When somebody doesn’t realize another vehicle is near is the most important time to be using a signal, but this law creates exeactly the opposite effect.
“in the event any other traffic may be affected by such movement”
In this case, other traffic was affected… the police car was set in motion because of a combination of turning (the “movement”) and lack of signal.
WV Code 17C-8-9 states “Any stop or turn signal when required herein shall be given either by means of the hand and arm or by a signal lamp or lamps or mechanical signal device.” Code 17C-8-8(a) states “No person shall so turn any vehicle without giving an appropriate signal in the manner hereinafter provided in the event any other traffic may be affected by such movement.”
There is no inconsistency. Section 17C-8-9 only applies when a signal is required. Section 17C-8-8(a) clearly indicates that a signal was not required. This was an example of a government agency taking a regulation out of context in an effort to bluff somebody out of challenging them. It didn’t work. I can’t believe the first court didn’t rule in favor of Clower on the issue of the turn signal infraction.
Or, maybe they did and the State kept appealing it hoping for a judge that would ignore the clear letter (not just intent) of the regulation and rule in their favor. Now I don’t thin that should get Clower off the hook for the drunk driving charge.
psarhjinian :
What this allows, basically, is drunks to act like drunks as long as there’s no one around who might misinterpret their lack or misuse of signalling,
No, it applies a driving regulation in a sensible manner. The whole purpose of using a turn signal is to let other drivers know what you are about to do and act accordingly. If there are no other drivers, then the turn signal serves no purpose. Believe it or not, not everybody who fails to use a turn signal on a deserted road is drunk. If there had been anybody, vehicle or pedestrian in the vicinity, then the driver would have been violating the law and creating a dangerous situation, and he would have been rightly cited under the current law leading to his further arrest for drunk driving.
With regard to the DUI arrest, Mr. Clower may have gotten his breath test suppressed and won his case. If the turn signal violation was the sole reason for the traffic stop, and the court ruled that it wasn’t a legal reason, the officer had no legal reason to request a breath test and Mr. Clower dodged a DUI. Everybody has to play by the rules.
Lumbergh21, I disagree with your assessment. As I and others have said, the current WV statutes are unworkable and need to be revised because it’s sensible and prudent to signal whether a driver sees other traffic or not. Cars have blind spots, as do traffic ways, driveways, alleys, parking lots, etc. Just because you can’t see other traffic doesn’t meant that other traffic can’t see your car, and providing an indication of your actions improves safety.
I agree that the turn signals should always be used and that this douche was definitely DUI. However, I think its a very good thing that the charges were dismissed. The only way to prevent police officers from engaging in fishing expeditions is to invalidate arrests they make without due cause. Without that there would be no practical and effective recourse for victims of police harrassement and misconduct. I couldn’t care less if that results in obvious douchebags getting away with a few misdeeds, police conduct is far more likely to affect the average citizen than these wildcard situations.
Also, lane markers are supposed to be ignored in certain driving conditions (nightime rural roads with deer or heavy rain (the roads are center domed)). However, the turn signal thing, I think, is different, as you can rarely be sure that no one is in fact watching. What about pedestrains? I clearly do not live in a flat state though, maybe you really can tell where the ticket was issued.
“I signal all of the time, including parking lots and private drives, because I want to do all I can to safely communicate my actions to others, whether I see them or not. ”
Part of one’s job as a driver is to know what other drivers are doing and where they are. “I didn’t see the other car” or “I didn’t know a pedestrian was there” causes collisions.
Ah yes… how to do you prove a negative?
The flaw with this judgment is simple. The driver does not know with 100% certainty that no one else needs the information that his turn signal transmits. How can someone know what they don’t know? What if there was someone standing there in dark clothes that he couldn’t see? They can’t. That is why you err on the side of caution and always signal
If there’s no one else on the road, what’s the point of staying between the lane markers?
Actually, I disagree with this. When I am driving on empty country roads, especially in Australia, I drive right down the middle.
The reason I do this is because it gives me more time and space to react if a Deer (when in US or Canada) or Kangaroo (when in Oz) comes out. If I am sticking to my lane in Australia (on the left), and a roo comes out out of the bush from my left, then I have that much less time to swerve right in the hope of avoiding him, or at least hitting with a side blow.
I’ve never been ticketed for doing this.
Amazingly enough, I went to school with Trooper C.T. Kessel from kindergarten through 12th year. His dad was my bus driver for several years. In fact, around a month ago I was looking at a Tacoma that was recently purchased by Mr. Kessel. My dad’s best friend’s daughter sold it to him shortly after I decided it wasn’t what I needed.
FWIW, one of my biggest pet peeves is people not using their signals. I wholeheartedly agree with Tommy on this one.
Reminds me of an ad for a car for sale in Italy.
2001 Audi A4; 120000km; Perfect condition. Turn signals never used.
No, it applies a driving regulation in a sensible manner. The whole purpose of using a turn signal is to let other drivers know what you are about to do and act accordingly
Unless this guy is telepathic, he has no way of knowing if there’s anyone else around. That’s why this is a weak excuse: he got off because he was lucky there was no one else within reasonable distance and the law allowed that particularly stupid loophole.
Stupid laws aside, you use your turn signal every time whether you see someone or not, because there might be someone there whom you can’t see, and the officer should be able to pull you over for not using your signal regardless of circumstance, just as they should be able to do so for exceeding the speed limit on an empty road or going through a red in an empty intersection.
It’s not that not using your turn signal is a sign of drunkness, it’s that not using your turn signal is a bad habit. If you get pulled over and the police officer notices something else at the time (drunk, no seatbelt, improper child seat, huge bag of cocaine) then, well, too bad for you. Use your turn signal next time.
What’s scary is that this is noteworthy.
Most state statutes require signaling only if other traffic can be affected by the lane change or turning action.
But, because most traffic tickets aren’t financially worth fighting, the issues in these types of cases generally arise only when the stop leads to some other prosecution, such as drugs or OWI – and judges are gutless political wonders, every last one of them, when it comes to fearing the wrath of the MADD mothers. So, they find any possible excuse to uphold the stop.
So, I guess you can say this took real guts for the judges.
But all it should have required was reading the law.
Which, incidentally, is something that the cop should have been required to do before they gave him or her a gun and a badge.
I assume that they do require literacy for police officers, even in West Virginia.
Could be worse…
When driving in rural Mexico, you get stuck behind a large slow moving truck. He turns his left turn signal on. that can mean
(a) He is turning left, so don’t pass.
(b) He is telling you it is clear to pass.
Take your pick, and your life in your hands if you guess wrong.
It gets weirder. The car in front of you slows down and turns on their right turn signal. “Ah!”, you say. “They are turning right!”. So you feel you can ease over to the left and pass. Wrong! They pull into the left lane in order to make a slow nice wide right turn. Arrrrrgh.
While I agree this case should — if the WV legislature are at all smart — prompt a quick closure of this loophole, I have always considered lighting usage laws to be rather self-regulating: If there’s anybody on the road in front of you to object to your high beams, then your high beams shouldn’t be on. If they are, and he who objects to them happens to be a cop, then E should write you a ticket. If you don’t use your turn signal and there’s a cop around to notice you didn’t, then E should write you a ticket because a turn signal was warranted.
I’m not advocating driving drunk or as long as it doesn’t hurt someone, as the risk is that driving drunk will hurt someone. However we are talking about not using a turn signal when no one is around. Listening to some of you, why don’t we require an electronic monitoring device in all of our cars to catch us whenever we break any of thousands of laws?!
“WARNING: Driver was caught looking at cell phone. Your bank account has been charged $100 and we’ve also notified your insurance company as a potential risk.”
“WARNING: Driver just exceeded the MPH by 5! Your bank account has been charged $200, we’ve notified your insurance company, and you’ve also been enrolled in a driver’s safety course for this second violation.”
“WARNING: Driver just passed gas and we’ve notified your health insurance company.” :)
fincar1, I hope you’re kidding. No one, not even the best driver on Earth, can “know what other drivers are doing and where they are” all of the time. Regardless of their mad skillz and cat-like reflexes, every driver has been surprised at least once by the appearance of an unexpected companion on the road.
The rest of your post actually supports the use of signals even when the driver is unaware of others:
“I didn’t see the other car” or “I didn’t know a pedestrian was there” causes collisions.
I agree, which if you refer to my first point, means that it’s best for drivers to signal so those unknown cars and pedestrians have more warning about your intentions.
There’s so much wrong with this decision that I don’t know where to start. But I’ll try anyways:
Actually, it’s an excellent decision. Not only on narrow legal grounds of reading the statute consistent with legislative intent, but in a broader sense – signaling for a right hand turn on a secondary road is not all that important, even when other traffic is present. Oncoming traffic can’t turn left in front of him whether he is signaling or not. They’ll have to wait until it’s clear to turn. Following traffic will have to slow for him, whether he is signaling or not.
I’m sure scenarios can be spun where failure to signal will cause an accident, but most of the time, it won’t.
Note that I’m not talking about lane changing at 70 in heavy traffic on the interstate.
Hmm…does this make the “speed limit” optional where nobody is around?
Heck, here in Alabama turn signals are optional on new car purchases! Want to save a few bucks on the Dodge Ram? Just leave the “turn signals” block blank on the order form…
This is one of those “legally correct” but still stupid rules. Why give more power to people to NOT signal, regardless of what they think the traffic conditions are?
I am all for personal freedom and against big brotherism, but this us f.. stupid! As I have been telling my kids when I taught them to drive; the only(!) way to use the turn signal is to use it as a reflex action. Alway use it, never ponder over whether you need to use it, just use it!! There are enough idiots prowling the streets today that can’t for the love of God find their turn signal stalk, why on earth would anybody give them more reason to – not signal?
Ha, us backwards Texicans have had this one right for a long time. The rule ’round here has always been that failure to signal a RIGHT turn isn’t an issue. OTOH, we may hang you for failing to signal a left!
This decision is not about turn signals, DUI, or probable cause. It’s about the rule of law.
If the state doesn’t like the decision, then legislate correctly to change the law. But don’t complain that someone appealed this decision to the WVSC and received a ruling by the SC in his favor.
Legal decisions are not based on whether an issue is morally right or the end justifies the means, but on what is stated by law and how that law is interpreted.
Toasty: Mr. Clower’s attorney earned his keep, and the court did its job. Now it’s up to the legislature to fix the law so this loophole is removed.
DrivnEZ: This decision is not about turn signals, DUI, or probable cause. It’s about the rule of law. If the state doesn’t like the decision, then legislate correctly to change the law. But don’t complain that someone appealed this decision to the WVSC and received a ruling by the SC in his favor.
The above get a gold star and a smiley face on their answers to the pop quiz because this was a READING COMPREHENSION test, not a forum on the proper use of turn signals.
I for one am going to buy the esteemed members of the WV Supreme Court a round of drinks to celebrate their profound wisdom. Conversely I will blow a raspberry at the WV legislature for doing such a poor job of writing the law.
–chuck
Stopping a driver dead of night is hazardous to the trooper. Stopping a driver doing no harm is lack of judgment. Law be damned.
toasty:
Lumbergh21, I disagree with your assessment. As I and others have said, the current WV statutes are unworkable and need to be revised because it’s sensible and prudent to signal whether a driver sees other traffic or not. Cars have blind spots, as do traffic ways, driveways, alleys, parking lots, etc. Just because you can’t see other traffic doesn’t meant that other traffic can’t see your car, and providing an indication of your actions improves safety.
I agree that using a turning signal should be second nature; however, analyzing this as a law enforcement issue:
1) For a person to be caught not using a turn signal, a peace officer must be present.
2) That peace officer should be able to determine whether or not there was anybody present that was affected by the driver not sgnalling a turn.
3) Since no ticket can be issued without a police officer present, what happens the other 99.99% of the time is moot in regards to the law.
So, even though there is a likely hood that a driver will not notice other drivers as pointed out by you and others, thereby leading him to potentially fail to signal when he should have, unless there is a peace officer present he can’t be cited anyway. Therefore, for legal purposes why not allow a turn without signalling when it is safe to do so, unless the purpose is to allow peace officers a larger number of opportunities to go fishing for additional crimes and/or pad the coffers of the local jurisdiction.
All this is Bull Shit. The WV cop was just revenueing. Yes, using your turn signals is safer but so is having someone hold the ladder when you go up to clean the gutters. You don’t deserve a ticket for it.
All these “woulda-coulda-shoulda” laws are wrong. If you cause an accident because you didn’t signal. ITS YOUR FAULT. You shouldn’t be penalized if you COULD have caused an accident.
Lumbergh21 –
Therefore, for legal purposes why not allow a turn without signalling when it is safe to do so…
Referring to #2 of your post, you state that it is possible for someone to be affected by the lack of turn signal use. If that is true (and I believe it is), then the presence of an officer is irrelevant. If an accident is caused by a driver failing to signal a lane change and moving abruptly into the lane of an overtaking car, the accident will occur whether or not it’s observed by an officer.
Whatever the motivation of an officer, turn signal use is a safety issue. You SHOULD be penalized if you COULD have caused an accident and you violated the law. Otherwise, accident rates will increase dramatically, and eventually, they’ll even involve the perfect drivers among us. Arguments against enforcing traffic laws fall apart in the real world.