One clever defendant and his attorney found a crazy loophole to beat a specific type of Virginia reckless driving charge.
You can be arrested and charged with misdemeanor criminal reckless driving for all kinds of behavior, from speeding over 80mph or 20mph over the posted speed limit to other types of dangerous or reckless driving, not moving over a lane when emergency vehicles are parked on the road, and countless other actions behind the wheel.
According to the Washington Post, this particular legal strategy hinges around some strange wording around the statute for reckless driving for passing a stopped school bus.
The exact wording in the Virginia Statue is:
“A person is guilty of reckless driving who fails to stop, when approaching from any direction, any school bus which is stopped on any highway, private road or school driveway for the purpose of taking on or discharging children.”
This wording of the reckless driving law was changed in 1970 for some reason, and it removed the word “at”.
So the case was won by arguing that he did not “fail to stop the school bus” which was already stopped.
The judge didn’t agree with the prosecution’s argument that the intention of the law was clear.
No doubt this law will be corrected and clarified by the Virginia legislature as soon as possible.
Frankly, I’m surprised this has been in the law for 40 years, and this is the first time someone has challenged the legal wording.