Not a protest, but this exact thing occurred during the Fort Lee Lane closure scandal, when people intentionally created road closures in New Jersey. This was national news for awhile [0]
Also, a lack of media coverage for a thing doesn't mean it doesn't happen, nor does rampant media coverage mean a thing is common. Remember the summer of the shark? [1]
There are a lot of people out there who have important things that have to do with their health. Just because someone is not in an ambulance doesn't mean they don't have somewhere important to be. Not everyone with a medical condition rides in an ambulance.
But the vast majority of medical conditions where routing around a protest or road closure would cause serious harm to an individual are probably in ambulances.
Not really sure what your point is regarding 'vast majority'. How many people's lives are acceptable to endanger?
Just today, an interstate was shut down unexpectedly because of protesters. What about everyone who was trapped on that highway and could not move, let alone reroute?
That is a terrible analogy. The key difference is that parades, motorcades, and road construction are planned events. Protesters who unexpectedly stop traffic do not give people opportunity to plan.
side comment: Loving the downvotes for a legitimate point. When did hacker news turn into reddit?
So just roll the dice that you’re not going to hurt anyone by blocking traffic? Who’s responsible if something does go wrong? That’s going to really help the cause.
There are a million reasons that traffic gets blocked such as parades, funerals, road construction, and traffic accidents.
And I didn't hear anyone make the argument any of those things should be banned to prevent the potential loss of life from someone trying to get to a hospital while not in an ambulance.
It really seems like an isolated demand for safety.
Does it matter if it's planned? If you have a medical condition and you need to get to a hospital it doesn't matter whether you had a week's notice or a days notice because the need to get to a hospital is unplanned.
Yes it matters that it's planned. There are permits, detours, announcements and emergency response planning for all of the above. Here's the process for getting a parade permit in NYC
It's that blocking traffic is a material, aggressive escalation of a protest that could have very negative ramifications to the cause. Not only does it reallyreally piss people off, it puts human bodies in direct conflict with vehicles and could potentially block travel to someone that needs urgent medical attention.
If that's your jam then go for it. For my part, if i am in a vehicle with family and we are in a traffic jam due to a protest, i'm going to be in an agitated state...not because of the delay but because of the inability to escape. I'll wait it out, but if people start attacking my car and breaking windows, i'm hitting the gas till i see daylight. That innate sense of how i would respond and is why i think people should approach blocking traffic with caution.
jascii says>"The way you are firing yourself up to commit homicide over a hypothetical situation..."<
He's isn't "firing [himself] up.." as you say, he's thinking out what could possibly happen and considering what his options are.
If you wait until you're in such a situation (people are breaking into your car and threatening to harm the occupants) you simply don't have sufficient time to think out those options - you must think and prepare ahead of time. For those who live in places where riots or firefight break out regularly, this is the proper and usual way to prepare.
FWIW in most of the USA it isn't homicide if you kill an attacker(s), provided you are defending life or limb of yourself, others and/or your property.
I am well aware of the benefits of visualisation which is why this is so disturbing.
Driving a car into a crowd is not self-defense, it is mass homicide and mentally training yourself to make that a "valid option" can be extremely dangerous.
jcims clearly stated>"I'll wait it out, but if people start attacking my car and breaking windows, i'm hitting the gas till i see daylight."<
jcims didn't say that he would be "Driving a car into a crowd..." as you state.
Clearly, if rioters begin beating a car and breaking windows the driver has the option of surviving by driving to preserve life, limb and property.
jascii says>"mentally training yourself to make that a "valid option" can be extremely dangerous."<
Have you ever been surrounded by a mob or mobs while driving a vehicle? We're discussing it here, so you've now at least considered (and possibly once experienced) such a situation: otherwise how could you claim that such an option can be, as you state, "extremely dangerous"?
Tell us your valuable experiences, please.
BTW there's plenty on this topic previously on the innertubes:
I have worked as a UN human rights observer in several countries and have in that capacity been in vehicles in angry crowds. Standard operating procedure has always been to not engage and wait it out, and this has always worked well for me.
Vehicular manslaughter is not a viable option: eventually your vehicle will be stopped and you'll have an even more enraged croud to deal with.
I'm sorry if I made you feel like you were being trolled, that was certainly not my intention. I got triggered by the phrase: "i'm hitting the gas till i see daylight" which seemed indiscriminate and excessive to me.
We'd still have communism here if people were so obedient and concerned about blocking traffic that millions would not go into the streets for protests in 1989.
Look people can build killdozers and flatten police buildings for all i care. The point is that blocking traffic is an escalation that could literally cost lives, either by denying travel in an emergency or by putting cars and human bodies in conflict.
Oh really, how do you know this? Given the scale of protests over time, I bet it is likely someone has. And if someone hasn't already, someone eventually will. Saying something has never happened so therefore it won't happen is ridiculous.
This is not theoretical grandstanding, this is recognizing a potential threat.
Sure, if it was perfectly knowable it would be. Fox news would be numero uno--no doubt. But things like this are not necessarily known. It can be a complicated thing to piece together. What IS known is that at a large scale there is a -calculable- probability that someone who needs help could get caught up, or someone like a surgeon who needs to give help could get caught up. Again, like I said earlier, if it hasn't happened then it will. I'm willing to bet it has happened (though whether it has or has not yet is pointless debate given that it will with a statistical certainty).
Not an ambulance, but the fire department was (allegedly) blocked from reaching an occupied burning building in Richmond (VA) yesterday: https://youtu.be/AEncQKV8k_0?t=205
Not sure why you're being downvoted. There is documented evidence of this:
> "To see this - traffic blocking the main intersection of a level 1 trauma centre, blocking the entrance and exit to our hospital. Blocking patients from receiving care that they need, makes me angry. It hurts. It hurts a lot," said one healthcare worker on Facebook.
> WLNS reports another posting: "You are currently blocking ambulances, physicians and caregivers from making it to work to care for the sick and relieve the exhausted workers.
