Articles Tagged with vehicle and traffic law

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Oregon, and especially the Portland-metro area, is awash in lawyers talking about the law to all and sundry – for no charge. (You don’t even have to buy them lunch – how much better than that can it get?)

There are pedestrian and bicycle legal clinics, bankruptcy clinics, small business legal clinics, homebuyer clinics, patent law programs (e.g. at CubeSpace), expungment clinics, and many more.

You just need to know where to look for the announcements. Despite what you think, many lawyers are just not that good at marketing. Until some of us figure out a way to maintain a website or blog where these programs can be posted, here are some tips on how to find them. Like most things that are worthwhile, it will take some effort, but it may surely pay off in the end:

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The Willamette Pedestrian Coalition is sponsoring a Pedestrian Legal Clinic. Visit the WPC’s website for dates, times, locations of the clinics.

The WPC also has information about grants to enforce crosswalk safety laws and lots more at the website. (It’s also a very nice website – easy to read and navigate.)

I’m glad to see all this power to the pedestrian action. I’ve been puzzled by the new(ish) Share the Road program. Notice the parties who are being asked to Share the Road: 2+ wheeled motor vehicle drivers and pedalcyclists.

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From the Washington County (Oregon) Law Librarian:

Public law librarians get the darnedest questions. It’s not so much the questions themselves, but that people think that we have answers to their questions. We don’t! But we like that people think about us when trying to solve their problems.

And we do have the pretty good problem-solving and research skills. We also, most of us, have a lot of common sense, not to mention a lot of people we can call upon for more research ideas. Here’s a recent question – and answer:

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If your answer is yes, you might want to read this case from the Oregon Court of Appeals, filed 10/29/08.

You can also see a judicial exercise of statutory interpretation at work. What does it mean that a registration plate be displayed “on the front * * * of the vehicle”?

And, the next time you complain when the law librarian says, in response to your legal question (ahem, your legal problem), “IT DEPENDS,” you might understand why.

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Here’s a story about a man who was wronged – and how it took him 5 months to right the wrong.

(We see a lot of people in the law library who want quick fixes for the wrongs done to them. It’s a hard lesson for them to learn — that fixing many wrongs can take time, persistence, patience, and forbearance, and sometimes all to the power 10.)

Portland man gets refund, and he wasn’t the only one wrongly towed,” by Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, Tuesday September 23, 2008:

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My blog post about How to Beat Your Ticket has been very popular and now, with the generous help of the Oregon State Bar (OSB) Bulletin editors, writers, and lawyer contributors, I am sure to surpass that value with this new post.

The OSB Bulletin’s Aug/Sept 2008 issue has an, I dare say phenomenal, article on traffic law: Traffic School: What Every Lawyer Needs to Know, by Janine Robben. It even includes one of those beloved Checklists – hurrah! (My law library patrons and I do love our checklists.)

So, if you have a traffic ticket you want to challenge and don’t read this article in addition to the quick-pick resources from my blog post, then I have nothing else to say to you.

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Chicago Bicycle Law links to the Portland attorney Ray Thomas article, “Strategies Regarding Public Irritation With Bicyclists.”

Excerpt:

Examine the letter section of local newspapers or listen in on commentary on a.m. radio talk shows and the emergence of a new group of people becomes visible – folks who openly dislike bicycle riders. As the number of bicyclists (and their perceived political muscle) has increased, more and more citizens have come forward to denounce boorish, illegal, elitist, rude, and/or threatening behavior of bicyclists….

Unfortunately, this backlash to the bicycle movement has made its way into the jury box. Since jurors are drawn from voter and driver license lists, people on juries tend to include folks who are able to leave their jobs or home routines and serve for as long as a case takes to finish. Juries are composed of people who reflect area demographics and attitudes – the majority of jurors identify with car drivers and do not ride bicycles in traffic….”
(link to full article)

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Read the legal guide book (156 pages!) “Oregon Pedestrian Rights: A Legal Guide for Persons on Foot,” from one of the lawyers who brought us these other guides, which I posted about here (including the bicyclist legal guide, Pedal Power) (and don’t forget about this bicycle manual from DMV).

Previous pedestrian posts here and here, on how not to die walking across the Morrison Bridge.

Thanks to Jack Bog’s Blog for the lead.

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