I just saw this over at the Ace of Spades blog, and given the fact that I like ambiguity I thought I’d pass it on. There was a law in Georgia about left-turns. Here’s what it said:
The driver of a vehicle intending to turn left shall approach the turn in the extreme left-hand lane lawfully available to traffic moving in the direction of travel of such vehicle. Whenever practicable, the left turn shall be made to the left of the center of the intersection and so as to leave the intersection or other location in the extreme left-hand lane lawfully available to traffic moving in the same direction as such vehicle on the roadway being entered.
Now we ask a simple question. If you are executing a left turn from a two lane road onto a four lane road, do you take the left-lane or the right-lane on the road you entered?
I’ll let you think about that a minute.
I should point out that the part of this that had me confused was the phrase “the left turn shall be made to the left of the center of the intersection” since, as far as I can tell, there’s no such thing as “left of the center of the intersection.” The direction “left” requires a frame of reference. So if I’m driving north, left is to the west. Suppose I want to turn left and come upon an intersection. The center of the intersection is coming: the entire wrong lane of traffic is to the left of the center of that intersection, isn’t it? If instead we say it’s being left of the center of the intersection after the turn, then seems to me that once again we’d be in the wrong lane…
However, the GA Supreme Court helpfully noted:
It provides that, except in situations when it is not practicable, the left turn should be made “to the left of the center of the intersection,” thereby prohibiting the driver from initiating a left turn prior to the vehicle’s arrival at the center of the intersection.
They included this footnote:
1I.e., this language requires the driver to keep the vehicle’s wheels straight until arriving at the center of the intersection before the driver begins to make the left turn. This language thus seeks to avoid two dangerous situations that may arise when the turn is made prematurely: collisions with on-coming traffic traveling the opposite direction on the road from which the driver is turning [case citation removed], and collisions with vehicles already present at or approaching the intersection on the roadway to be entered.
Now I don’t know why the GA legislators couldn’t have just said, “Turns must be made after one reaches the center of the intersection.” But that is not the ambiguity to which I refer!
Rather, we can simplify the original sentence a bit by cutting out some extraneous words. So we could get:
The left turn shall be made so as to leave the intersection or other location in the extreme left-hand lane lawfully available to traffic moving in the same direction
Now, what does it mean by “leave”? And what is the object that is “left” when the driver leaves? Does one leave the intersection in the extreme left-hand lane available to traffic (i.e., turn into the left-hand lane)? Or does one leave so that the extreme left-hand lane remains available to traffic (i.e., turn into the right-hand lane and leave the left open)?
Well, the GASC ruled (pdf) that this law was, indeed, able to be read either way, and thus it is unconstitutionally vague.
Ambiguity. Gotta love it!
