Politics & Government

Ballwin Repeals Law that Punished Driver for Flipping the Bird

The Ballwin City Council voted this week to repeal a controversial law that tried to keep residents from putting their limbs outside of their vehicles.

Whether waving through the car window to a friend or riding the warm summer airwaves, travellers in Ballwin are allowed to stick a limb outside their vehicle following a decision by the Ballwin City Council this week.

Council members voted 6 votes to 2 in favor of repealing a law that forbid drivers or passengers from sticking any body part outside of a moving vehicle, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Ballwin Mayor Tim Pogue and Alderman Kathy Kerlagon opposed the vote in favor of leaving the law on the books.

The council's decision comes just less than a year after an incident where Florissant resident Stephen Pogue, 64 (who has no known relation to Mayor Tim Pogue, he said) was ticketed by Ballwin Police for gesturing with his middle finger at another driver. The highly publicized incident eventually attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union, which criticized the punishment as a violation of the First Amendment.

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"I'm not proud of doing this," Pogue said in July. "It's not the Christian thing to do. It just happened, and it's just frustrating."

Prior to Monday's vote, at a Feb. 13 council meeting, Alderman Shamed Dogan told the board he didn't see any reason to support other proposals that would have amended the law.

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“I’m not sure why our police have to spend their time protecting people from their own idiocy,” Dogan said. “So I would think that rather than going through this whole exercise and split hairs and deal with civil liberties issues … I think it’s better to repeal it.”


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