"There is also a fine for driving and smoking, is it too wide?" In Shanghai, Xiao Zhou smoked at red lights and was fined 200 yuan by the traffic police for "obstructing safe driving". However, he believed that the law did not clearly stipulate that driving could not smoke, and he sued the court against the penalty decision.
(Source of the case: Shanghai Railway Transport Court)
On the day of the incident, Xiao Zhou went out to play, encountered a big traffic jam on the road, looked at the car in front of him like a long dragon, and it was a red light, and The moody Xiao Zhou lit a cigarette and began to swallow the clouds and spit out the fog.
Unexpectedly, the scene of him smoking was filmed by the monitoring equipment in front of the car.
After that, the traffic police team decided to impose a fine of 200 yuan on the grounds that Xiao Zhou had committed other acts that obstructed safe driving and violated the provisions of Article 62, Item 3 of the Implementing Regulations of the Road Traffic Safety Law.
After Xiao Zhou returned home, he carefully studied article 62, paragraph 3 of the "Regulations for the Implementation of the Road Traffic Safety Law" and found that there was no explicit prohibition on smoking by car in this item.
With this discovery, Xiao Zhou believed that the traffic police were indiscriminately punished, and after making sufficient preparations, he sued the traffic police team to the court and asked for the punishment decision to be revoked.
Xiao Zhou said that article 62, item 3 of the Implementing Regulations of the Road Traffic Safety Law stipulates that driving a motor vehicle shall not obstruct safe driving, such as dialing and answering handheld phones and watching television.
The regulations can not find the word "smoking" at all, prohibiting driving and smoking is completely a law created by the traffic police themselves, punishing themselves, and there is no basis for the law.
Xiao Zhou also believes that the law can be prohibited without prohibition, since the law is not written out, it is not considered illegal, and smoking can refresh the mind, relieve fatigue, and benefit safety, and the punishment is even more unreasonable.
The traffic police team did not agree with Xiao Zhou's point of view, and refuted in court that although the "Road Traffic Safety Law Implementation Regulations" did not clearly state "driving smoking is prohibited", there was an equivalent word after the example, and the purpose of the law was obviously to stop all driving behaviors that hindered safety, and driving smoking was equally dangerous.
So, the two sides have their own opinions, which side is more reasonable?
In fact, the dispute in this case lies in the fact that driving a motor vehicle must not make calls to and receive handheld phones, watch television, and other acts that hinder safe driving, and whether the word "etc." in this provision includes "smoking while driving".
This is a problem of legislation, which is limited by the variety of social life, and anything can happen, and it is impossible to list all the acts one by one, and all of them can sometimes only be summarized in an equal word.
In this case, is there no other way to get in the way of safe driving other than making and receiving handheld phone calls and watching TV?
Obviously not, such as the current frequent driving messages, browsing the web, wearing slippers, etc. are unsafe behaviors.
Because, as a professional and authoritative law enforcement department, the traffic police are more professional in judging whether a certain behavior hinders safe driving, so the law uses a general "etc." legislative method to authorize the traffic police to make a judgment on whether other behaviors hinder safe driving.
However, although the traffic police can judge, this judgment is also conditional and restrictive, can not be arbitrary, traffic police identified other behaviors that hinder safe driving, at least with the danger of dialing and answering handheld phones, watching TV, or the danger is higher than the two behaviors listed.
In fact, judging which is more dangerous than calling and answering handheld phones and watching TV, there is no accurate standard, and can only rely on traffic police combining life experience and work experience, which is a subjective judgment process.
Since it is subjective, there will certainly be cases that vary from person to person, because the way each person thinks, the experience of life, and the perception of things cannot be exactly the same, which leads to differences in the perception of two things.
Specific to this case, the traffic police obviously believe that the danger of "driving and smoking" is equal to or greater than dialing and answering handheld phones and watching TV.
Xiao Zhou obviously felt that driving and smoking was less dangerous than dialing and answering handheld phones, watching TV, or even not dangerous at all.
This led to the disagreement between the two parties in this case.
So, what to do if the two sides do not give in to each other? Now that we have arrived at the court, the question is again left to the court to judge.
The court held that the degree of danger of Xiao Zhou's smoking behavior is not lower than that of dialing and answering handheld phones and watching TV when driving, and since dialing and answering handheld phones and watching TV constitute obstructing safe driving, then, of course, driving and smoking has constituted an obstruction to safe driving, and the police found that the facts are clear, the law is applied correctly, and the law enforcement procedures are legal.
In the end, the court ruled to dismiss Xiao Zhou's claim.
Afterwards, some people said that driving and smoking everyone knows that there is danger, the temperature of the burning cigarette butt is extremely high, if the cigarette is not stable, falling in the car is even more dangerous, this small week also went to sue, it is really nothing to find trouble.
However, some people say that the purpose of administrative litigation is to put public power into the cage of the system and ensure the correct exercise of power.
Initiating administrative litigation is a right conferred on every citizen by law, and only when everyone actively exercises it can the legislative purpose of the Administrative Procedure Law be realized.
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