21 Ga. App. 658 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1918
The defendant was indicted for a violation of section 11 of the law approved November 30, 1915, regulating the use of automobiles on public highways, which provides, inter alia, as follows: “Whenever any operator of a motor vehicle or motorcycle shall meet, on a public street or highway, any person or persons riding or driving one or more horses, or any other draft animal, or any other vehicle, approaching in° the opposite direction, the operator shall turn his vehicle to the right so as to give one-half of the traveled roadway, if practicable, and a fair opportunity to the other to pass by without unnecessary interference.” He demurred to the indictment upon the ground that this statute is too vague and indefinite for penal enforcement, and his demurrer was overruled.
The language of this court in Hayes v. State, 11 Ga. App. 371 (75 S. E. 523), is peculiarly applicable in this case: “It is the duty of the judidial department, wherever possible, to construe an act of the legislative department so as to make it valid and binding and give due effect to all of its terms. Hence, a statute ought not to be held void for uncertainty if it is possible to give a reasonably particular construction to its terms, so as to make them capable of enforcement. But while this is true, the State can hot make an act penal without defining the act in terms sufficiently clear for any person to understand that in performing the act he is guilty of a violation of the statute. The maxim that ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse for crime’ is founded upon the theory that a citizen may ascertain the law and know that the act which he is performing has been condemned. If it is impossible for him to as
The statute under consideration provides that the operator, when meeting another vehicle,, “shall turn his vehicle to the right so as to give one half of the traveled roadway, if practicable, and a fair opportunity to the other to pass by without unnecessary interference.” But who should determine, in each particular ease, whether, under the particular circumstances of that case, it was practicable for the driver to give the other party half of the traveled roadway? Under certain circumstances one jury might consider such action practicable, and convict; another jury, under the same circumstances, might deem it impracticable, and-acquit. If the driver of the motor vehicle deemed it impracticable to give half of the traveled roadway and in good faith failed so to do, he would be convicted of the offense should the jury find he used poor judgment in passing upon the practicability. How is the driver to know in all cases when he is violating this statute ?
The remaining portion of the section under consideration, requiring such driver to give a “fair opportunity” to the other to pass by without “unnecessary interference,” needs no discussion
Judgment reversed.