September 30, 2003
DWS: Driving While Sleepy?
About a month ago New Jersey put a law on the books that makes it a crime to drive while sleepy. Again, it's a law that takes the place of basic common sense, but this one isn't a bad law, right?
Apparently, the law states that a person must have been awake for at least 24 hours (ok, so far) and must be knowingly driving while drowsy. Now how do you prove, outside of a confession, that someone was knowingly driving while drowsy? It is a very subjective requirement. Without there being an objective standard, I don't see this as being really an enforceable law. I can even see a court striking it down as being too vague as I don't think that there is a reasonable acceptance or standard for "knowingly driving while drowsy."
Like I said before, it is a law that really just codifies common sense. It really says something about how far away from the concept of personal responsibility we are as a society that we need to pass a law like this. But given how far away from that concept we are, I can grudingly accept the need for the law.
It just simply needs to be better written to take away any ambiguity or subjectiveness.
Posted by Chris at September 30, 2003 09:51 AM | TrackBack | Linked by:Comments have been closed on this entry in an effort to conserve disk space. If you have feedback on this entry, please email me at blog - at - cbnoble.com.


