Gassholes, the Sequel: Vehicular Assault
My last post, on the dangers of running or cycling on Germantown Road, generated a response that had me scratching my head and, ultimately, doing some research. One of the nineteen people who read the post put up a comment on Facebook to the effect that, under Oregon law, all those cars attempting to trim my arm hair were, in fact, in the right, and by obstructing their commutes with my soft body, I was actually committing a traffic infraction. As proof, he cited ORS 814.040. Oops. Wrong statute. That provision is only about crossing the street in town. It's Oregon's crosswalk law: pedestrians have the right of way if they're crossing the street at an intersection, whether or not there's a marked crosswalk. If there's a walk signal, they're supposed to obey it, but otherwise, the crosswalk is implied, and cars must yield to them. Crossing in the middle of a block ("jaywalking" in the vernacular), pedestrians must yield to vehicles; if they don'...
