| NOTE: this is a sarcastic, but non-fictional, commentary on how law and lawyers make the world a better place, not on who's right about anything contraversial. > The Texas Department of Transportation says the HOV lane can be used by "a vehicle occupied by two or more people" The DOT website isn't authoritative of course The offense would seem to be from the transportation code 452.0613(d)(2): https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/transportation-code/transp-sect... 452.0613(d)(2) operating a vehicle in or entering a high occupancy vehicle lane operated, managed, or maintained by an authority with fewer than the required number of *occupants*.
"Occupants" is never defined in the transportation code.The penal code has different definitions of "Person" than the transportation code: https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/penal-code/penal-sect-1-07.html 1.07(26) "Individual" means a human being who is alive, including an *unborn child at every stage of gestation* from fertilization until birth.
1.07(38) “Person” means an *individual* or a corporation, association, limited liability company, or other entity or organization governed by the Business Organizations Code.
But that's not relevant to the transportation code. Even if you argue that "occupant" means a "Person riding in the vehicle", and then that "Person" here includes unborn individuals, then it's also just as perfectly reasonable she would be instead guilty of violating 455.412:https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/transportation-code/transp-sect... 455.412(a) A person commits an offense if the person operates a passenger vehicle, transports a child who is younger than eight years of age, unless the child is taller than four feet, nine inches, and does not keep the child secured during the operation of the vehicle in a child passenger safety seat system according to the instructions of the manufacturer of the safety seat system.
There seems to be no exception for child individuals that are younger than no years of age.A possible defense could be to claim that the mother's womb was in this case the "child passenger safety seat system" and also, being the manufacturer, she had secured the child in accordance with her own instructions. I hope she takes this to court, I have a feeling they'd dismiss the ticket rather than have these arguments, but if they do it'd be interesting... |