traffic driving oregon
Is it legal to ignore directions of a volunteer who is directing traffic?
<p>I recently volunteered to help with a local parade. My main responsibility was to help direct traffic: basically, I stopped each vehicle, and asked them if they were participating in the parade. If they said no, I told them they had to turn around because the road was closed. One person ignored me after I told them to turn around and kept going. Several people didn't stop when I motioned for them to stop, so I didn't get a chance to tell them to turn around. Did they break any laws?</p>

<p>Pursuant to <a href="https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_811.445" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ORS 811.445</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A person commits the offense of use of a throughway when prohibited if
any use restrictions or prohibitions are posted by appropriate signs
giving notice thereof and the person violates any restriction or
prohibition so posted</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and you get a traffic ticket for violation. A narrow interpretation of the word &quot;sign&quot; is some physical object with appropriate words like &quot;Road closed for parade&quot;, but a broader interpretation is &quot;an indication&quot;, such as a person saying &quot;Road closed for parade&quot;. Nothing in state law restricts this notification power to only uniformed officers. However, <a href="https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_811.535" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ORS 811.535</a> which is the general &quot;failure to obey&quot; law only applies to disobeying uniformed police officers displaying a badge. The difference between the two offenses is that violating &quot;use when prohibited&quot; is only a class D infraction while disobeying a uniformed police officer is a class B infraction.</p>
<p>State law does not say what kind of person can direct traffic, it frames restrictions in terms of what a traffic authority can regulate (such as parades). County or municipal ordinances might then specifically say who is authorized to direct traffic. I assume it was not unknowable that there was a parade then and there, so the driver was already on notice that the road was closed to regular traffic. Nevertheless, state law does require that there be a &quot;sign&quot;, so if you had called the police to ticket a person, they might have made a federal or at least state case out of it, and we could learn what, in Oregon, the word &quot;sign&quot; means in the context of that law.</p>
<p>A crucial question is whether the road was closed by a competent traffic authority. That would be the county, I presume, and not e.g. the local Amvets chapter.</p>
