Bigking321
Well-known member
That's what the bill is trying to fix. Move it from a misdemeanor with a maximum punishment of a year to a felony.
Things get worse in The Southwest
- Thread starter Cherico
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But if one applied their logic on actual crimes to their invented "hate crimes"...
SoliFortissimi
Well-known member
Show me that law first.
Why do you think they love reeducation camps so much?
At any rate, yes, they're complete hypocrites. Comes natural when you're a moral crusader. Look at all those anti-gay pastors who get caught blowing some male hooker.
Umm...sometimes. And sometimes it's kids in cages getting raped till they die.
Bridge over Blue Mesa Reservoir closed indefinitely due to 3-inch-long crack in steel beam
The indefinite closure will create significant detours, adding up to seven hours of travel, for drivers between Gunnison and Montrose
coloradosun.com
So this is going to really suck for a good chunk of the Central/Southern CO mountains and anyone who uses US 50 in the area regularly.
I know of exactly 1 way to route around this bridge that doesn't require going several hundred miles out of the way, and it is a dirt road that cannot take serious traffic.
Under existing state laws, soliciting or agreeing to engage in an act of prostitution is defined as a form of disorderly conduct, which is a misdemeanor. It's still a misdemeanor if the person solicited was a minor *and* the person doing the solicited "knew or reasonably should have known" that they were a minor, but in that case it's made a little tougher by a mandatory minimum of two days in county jail and a $10,000 fine. Two days doesn't sound like much, but that mandatory minimum is significant because it takes "no jail time" off the table, and this is still for a misdemeanor.
Keep in mind this is only for soliciting. No actual contact whatsoever, and for that matter no proof of actual intent. There isn't an existing law that specifically covers "purchasing" a child, that is simply considered a form of soliciting prostitution.
Now, the context this is being brought up in the news is that there's a bill in the California state Senate which would create a new criminal offense specific to this. SB 1414 is a bipartisan bill with the primary sponsors being one Republican and two Democrats, and the original bill that they proposed would have made solicitation a felony and eliminate the "knew or should have known" element, and impose a mandatory minimum sentence of two years and sex offender registration for ten years.
What's being argued about is that the Senate Public Safety Committee, which the bill falls under, pushed through an amendment to the bill under consideration which would instead make it a "wobbler", i.e. a misdemeanor under some circumstances and a felony under other circumstances. Specifically, the committee's version of the bill would make solicitation of a child fifteen or younger a felony in all cases, would apply the mandatory prison sentence only in cases where there was a previous conviction, and would retain the status quo misdemeanor statute for those between sixteen and eighteen. The bill's original sponsors are against this, so they're kicking up a lot of media attention.
This is not a "liberals versus conservatives" thing; again, two of the three sponsors of the bill are Democrats, and the committee's version still makes it a felony under the circumstances people are thinking of. It's not as harsh as the original but it is quite unreasonable to call it 'soft on crime'.
That's already a felony with very harsh circumstances. The difference is that solicitation does not require any actual contact or intent, and if this bill is passed in either the original form *or* the less harsh committee form, it would become a strict-liability offense.
Infrastructure everywhere is wearing down. people think this stuff can last forever but it won't. trying to build something new is gonna be expensive and take money away from foreign aid bills. so it will be left to rot.Bridge over Blue Mesa Reservoir closed indefinitely due to 3-inch-long crack in steel beam
The indefinite closure will create significant detours, adding up to seven hours of travel, for drivers between Gunnison and Montrose
So this is going to really suck for a good chunk of the Central/Southern CO mountains and anyone who uses US 50 in the area regularly.
I know of exactly 1 way to route around this bridge that doesn't require going several hundred miles out of the way, and it is a dirt road that cannot take serious traffic.
This will be handled mostly with state level funds, with some Federal aid because it is a US Highway. Might take 2-3 years, the place is kinda remote to get to for heavy equipment, and the middle of the narrows there are surprisingly deep.
US 50 connects DC and Sacramento, so it is one of the more important non-interstate routes in the US, and this route takes a lot of local commercial, private, and passenger vehicles across this part of the state/Southwest.
Only reason the crack was discovered was because of an infrastructure assessment that was being carried out.
California bill could ban children as old as 16 from sitting in the front seat
Calling "shotgun" is as time-honored a tradition among American kids as any. Nobody wants to ride in the boring old back seat.
notthebee.com
And the sponsor of the bill literally did the Helen Lovejoy meme while defending it.
California bill could ban children as old as 16 from sitting in the front seat
Calling "shotgun" is as time-honored a tradition among American kids as any. Nobody wants to ride in the boring old back seat.
And the sponsor of the bill literally did the Helen Lovejoy meme while defending it.
Car seats are sized by physical size / body mass, not age. My mom is physically small to the point where honestly, if we ever got in a serious car crash the seatbelt would have almost certainly broken her neck even adjusted as low as it would go. She *really should have* used some kind of adult booster seat and not just a pillow on the driver's seat.
If we want to say that people can choose to take that risk, sure, but it's not insane to say that, "Look, restraints are sized by size, not age; the laws requiring restraints should follow reality."
Yep.
There are some male teens at 16 who are so large that they're taller/more muscled than the average adult in his early twenties: I knew two personally when I was in high-school (they could've passed for 21/22 at 16!).
There are also some women so petite in their twenties that they look like they're like 14 at best (in height and dimensions), so to use another example, their going on a theme park ride where there's a height requirement/harness size requirement is a very, very bad idea (as in "slipping out of a ride while it's hundreds of feet in the air" bad idea).
A law like this is, frankly, utterly fucking stupid, and the sponsor should be checked for brain damage.
Simonbob
Well-known member
"But it sounds nice!"
Uh, the whole point of the law is that it takes a step towards reality-based sizing instead of the age-based sizing that is currently the rule. Whereas the current law requires booster seats for children below 13, the new law would amend to requiring booster seats for those under 13 if they are under height, and also prohibiting front seat transport of children between 13 and 16 *unless* they are properly restrained.
So the thing is the context -- the article fails to explain the part that is *already in law* and acts as if this is a completely new set of regulations on a subject that has never been regulated before.
Edit: Just to clarify, this is the state of things:
The physical fact is that car seatbelt systems are designed for adult-sized persons, with a longstanding rule of thumb of 4' 9", eight years old, or 80 pounds. A quick Google Scholar search on my part turns up several reputable studies -- for example Morse et al. (2017) in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery -- indicating that in some larger cars, only 77%-83% of tested children actually fit the restraints properly despite being at the 4' 9" limit as opposed to the 90% that the rule of thumb is based on.
Existing California law is that children under 8 are required to be in the rear seat in an "appropriate child passenger restraint system" (i.e. a baby seat or booster), unless they are 4' 9" or taller. In addition, children 8 and up are only allowed in the front seat if they are "properly restrained" by a safety belt. The amended law would change the baseline age from 8 to 13, but allow children under 13 to still be in the front seat as long as they are able to use the safety belt properly.
In other words for the vast majority of children, this law changes nothing. What it's doing is addressing the edge case of physically small children between the ages of eight and thirteen, who under the old law can be legally transported using adult seatbelts *even if they do not actually fit*.
It is a misreading that the law potentially requires 16 year olds to be in the back seat. The back seat requirement applies to small eight to thirteen year olds only. The requirement for 16 year olds is that they must be "properly restrained by a safety belt", which is a change from the old rule saying 8 year olds are the point at which the "proper restraint" rule applies.
The physical fact is that car seatbelt systems are designed for adult-sized persons, with a longstanding rule of thumb of 4' 9", eight years old, or 80 pounds. A quick Google Scholar search on my part turns up several reputable studies -- for example Morse et al. (2017) in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery -- indicating that in some larger cars, only 77%-83% of tested children actually fit the restraints properly despite being at the 4' 9" limit as opposed to the 90% that the rule of thumb is based on.
Existing California law is that children under 8 are required to be in the rear seat in an "appropriate child passenger restraint system" (i.e. a baby seat or booster), unless they are 4' 9" or taller. In addition, children 8 and up are only allowed in the front seat if they are "properly restrained" by a safety belt. The amended law would change the baseline age from 8 to 13, but allow children under 13 to still be in the front seat as long as they are able to use the safety belt properly.
In other words for the vast majority of children, this law changes nothing. What it's doing is addressing the edge case of physically small children between the ages of eight and thirteen, who under the old law can be legally transported using adult seatbelts *even if they do not actually fit*.
It is a misreading that the law potentially requires 16 year olds to be in the back seat. The back seat requirement applies to small eight to thirteen year olds only. The requirement for 16 year olds is that they must be "properly restrained by a safety belt", which is a change from the old rule saying 8 year olds are the point at which the "proper restraint" rule applies.
See, this makes more sense.
So the front seat / rear seat distinction is a weird thing that exists in many states' seatbelt laws. For example, current Arizona law is that minors under 16 are always required to use a seatbelt or child restraint system, but 16 and older are only required to use a seatbelt if they are in the front seats.
ParadiseLost
Well-known member
Which is pretty stupid as well. I sure as fuck wouldn't let someone sitting behind me go without a seatbelt.
Buba
A total creep
YMMV
My sister fondly remembers the times when her daughters could lie and sleep in the back instead of sitting up in harness and sleepless and grumpy.
Robovski
Well-known member
My old self used to ride in the open back of a pick-up when I was little, and didn't start to use seat belts until my adult life. But the Gen X childhood was far more Darwinian; one side of me is like "we should protect kids from being needlessly flung around inside a car in an accident" while the other side is like "this should be my choice, get off my back government jackboot" so whichever really.