The Virginia General Assembly needs copy editors to keep it from making mistakes like the one it made in 1970, when delegates revised the law requiring motorists to stop for a school bus picking up kids with lights flashing.
The law — as quoted by the Washington Post this week — says:
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.
Notice the missing “at,” before the words “any school bus.” Tom Jackman of the Post reports:
“He can only be guilty if he failed to stop any school bus,” Judge Marcus D. Williams said at the end of the brief trial of John G. Mendez, 45, of Woodbridge. “And there’s no evidence he did.”
Williams added, “I hope that this is addressed so we don’t have to keep dealing with this.”
The General Assembly won’t reconvene until January. And any changes in the law they pass immediately won’t take effect until July, Jackman reports. Find the entire story here.
My thanks to Tim Thorsen of the Charleston, S.C. News & Courier for pointing this out to me.
You know who else needs copy editors? The Minnesota Vikings. And college alumni magazines. And pharmacies. And Tea Party candidates. And city and county Boards of Elections. And Google News’ ‘bots. And billboard companies. And sign painters. And rubber stamp designers. And restaurants. And breakfast joints. And college athletic department ticket offices. And the New York Jets and the St. Louis Cardinals. And baseball jersey manufacturers. And the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN and Time magazine. And drive-in movie theater managers. And Home Depot and manufacturers of “hoodies.†And T-shirt designers. And road paving contractors. And cake decorators.
