Odd Laws
Loopy legislation, crazy crimes and punishments – based on the TV series Beyond Belief!In Madagascar the law forbids pregnant women to wear hats or eat eels.In 1982, an elephant was arrested in Wisconsin on suspicion of murder.Minnesotans may not put male and female underwear next to each other on the clothes line.It sometimes seems that there is a law for everything these days – you never know when you could be risking arrest through some seemingly innocent act, especially when travelling abroad.Fear no more! With 'Odd Laws', the essential handbook for law-abiding travellers, you will know: not to dance on turtles in Malaya or hunt camels in Arizona, get fish drunk in Oklahoma or wrestle an untrained bull in public in England.Packed with amazing and side-splitting anecdotes of crime and punishment, Odd Laws proves what we all suspected, that sometimes the law really is an ass.
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Fourth Estate
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Copyright © Jenny Paschall 1996
Illustrations © Andy Hunt 1996
Jenny Paschall asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Photoset in Linotron Goudy Old Style by Rowland Phototypesetting Limited
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
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Source ISBN: 9780006387138
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2016 ISBN: 9780008192105
Version: 2016-09-27
‘One for the road’ always seemed to be such a friendly farewell, at least before the drink driving laws were enforced. In fact, the phrase has a much more sinister meaning, originating from the days of public hangings. When a condemned prisoner left Newgate Prison on his way to the gibbet, he would be put on a cart which would stop at every pub along the route. Each publican would give the prisoner a free drink – One for the Road. Usually by the time the gibbet and the hangman came into view, the condemned man was far too drunk to care about his fate.
Love-struck drivers beware: the lawmakers have considered you when devising codes for the roads. Drivers in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, for example, are prohibited from kissing a companion while driving on winding roads – obviously you’re safe to snog as long as the road ahead is straight! In Detroit, Michigan, it is illegal to make love in a car unless it is parked on the couple’s own property, while taxi drivers who have sex in the front seat of their vehicles during their working shifts are breaking the law in Springfield, Massachusetts.
In Bologna, Italy, a special law applies to prostitutes who drive. It states that a prostitute can, ‘drive a car carefully and at the same time lead a scandalous life’.
Bologna isn’t the only city to concern itself with the decency of its drivers. In Athens it is illegal to operate a motor vehicle on public roads if you are ‘poorly dressed’ or ‘un-bathed’. The lawmakers of Pocatello, Idaho, have taken things one step further, issuing a law that reads: ‘It is prohibited for pedestrians and motorists to display frowns, grimaces, scowls, threatening and glowering looks, gloomy and depressed facial appearances, generally all of which reflect unfavourably upon the city’s reputation.’
In Springfield, Ohio, it is unlawful to clean and dust the interior of a car while it is being driven down a city street.
You can always trust an Irishman to come up with a good excuse. One gentleman from Galway failed to show up in court after being caught travelling at seventy-seven m.p.h. down a quiet country road. When tracked down, he claimed that the summons got lost in the wash. While the judge sympathetically agreed that it could happen to anyone, it didn’t stop her finding him guilty.
Englishman Barry Saville went one better when he was taken to court for driving over the limit. He claimed it was the paraffin he used in his stage act as a fire-eater that caused the positive reaction in the breathalyser, not alcohol at all. Magistrates adjourned the case to allow him to recreate his act at a London Hospital and prove his innocence.
Double parking in Minneapolis, Minnesota, could be just the ticket if you are trying to lose weight. The legal punishment is time on a chain gang, being fed only bread and water. Or you could take a walk across the street in Swat, in the Himalayas, where jaywalkers are forced to run along the road until they fall over from exhaustion. But if you’re really desperate, try visiting Hammond, Indiana, where the automatic penalty for littering the street is one good dose of castor oil to be administered by the police department. A punishment sure to get criminals on the run!
