In State v. Olivarez, an officer in an unmarked car observed a driver turn on his turn signal for two seconds, and in one continuous movement, go from lane #2 to lane #4. The officer initiated a traffic stop due to the driver not signaling for the required two seconds once he was in lane #3 before proceeding to move into lane #4. Of course, we would not be talking about this case if it was just a traffic violation. The driver was the sole occupant of the vehicle, had a denied license, and the vehicle was registered to another person. The officer determined that he would impound the vehicle, and like in any good law school text book, brass knuckles were found on the driver and drugs and paraphernalia were found in the vehicle. There is some good analysis in this case on the reasonableness of an impound, but for our purposes here, I wanted to focus on the initial stop.
Olivarez argued that he complied with the plain text of the statute, as he signaled for two seconds and then in one continuous movement, moved from lane #2 in one continuous motion lane #4. The Court rejected this argument, stating that the "movement" contemplated in the statute was singular, not plural. The Court held that for a person to comply with the law, they must signal for at least two seconds for each movement made, and that each singular lane change constituted a separate movement.
While this may seem pretty clear, we now have this appellate decision confirming this requirement. The rationale used by the Court could apply to various traffic offenses for reasonable suspicion. Click on the link below if you would like to read the case.
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