MOTORISTS are no strangers to quirky laws, with many local municipalities enacting their own unique ordinances.
Curious drivers are constantly seeking out new restrictions which range from hilariously strange to outright nonsensical.
The seemingly strange law is aimed at protecting pedestrians from drivers and themselves[/caption]
The legendary law likely stems from the limited visibility drivers once had at nighttime[/caption]
However, there’s one law that’s so strange and its origin so enigmatic, drivers can’t help but wonder how it possibly came to be.
In Connecticut, one town curiously forbids pedestrians from walking backwards after sunset.
It’s unclear when, if ever, this law was seriously enforced by local authorities, but it’s certainly one of the more distinct communal restrictions to be discovered.
Unfortunately, the origin of the law is unclear, with no definitive answer on how or why it came to be.
It can be presumed that this was an early effort at keeping pedestrians safe via traffic laws which kept them out of the road.
Outlawing the act of walking backwards during a time of reduced visibility would also ensure pedestrians can see anything coming at them and be in a position to react as needed.
At the same time, it’s difficult to believe that walking backwards was a habit that many Devon residents happened to have at one point.
Regardless, the law’s intent was clearly to protect pedestrians, even if it went about it in a confusing way.
There’s also an argument to be made that the law is little more than myth thanks to the lack of history and evidence surrounding it.
For example, no official legislature from the state of Connecticut or the town of Devon can be found which officially enacted the law.
There are also no sources which can date the law or give a clear breakdown of its origins.
Other strange laws are documentable in this fashion, even within Connecticut itself.
While the state’s pickle law wasn’t tracked down in legal records, an article from 1948 confirms that Connecticut Food and Drug Commissioner Frederick Holcomb did indeed utilize the law to arrest a pair of pickle packers, per the Connecticut State Library.
Despite the humor in imagining an arrest made over walking backwards, it sadly seems like this law is only a legend.
LUDICROUS LAWS
New September driving laws and rules
- Starting September 14, new speed cameras will be turned on in Florida and threaten with $100 fees
- On September 1, drivers in South Carolina will have to watch where they put their hands under a new hands-free law
- Also, on September 1, certain vehicles operating in Texas will have to get a special permit
- More drivers will be forced to get dozens of hours of training before getting their license under a new law
- And drivers have until September 30 to collect a $7,500 tax credit
However, there are other strange driver- and pedestrian-centric laws which can be verified, such as a Georgia city’s law which forbids spitting from a moving car or bus, but permissible when done from a truck.
One of Indiana’s strangest laws forbids locals from attending a cinema or riding in a public streetcar (i.e., a taxi) within at least four hours after eating garlic.
An archaic Louisiana law forbids a woman from driving a car unless her husband is in front and waving a flag in front of it.
A similar law in Memphis, Tennessee exists, but specifies that the flag must be red and that the intention is to warn other drivers and pedestrians of the woman’s approach.
Yet arguably the strangest law is one that never was from Pennsylvania focused on cars and horses scared of them.
Proposed in the 1800s, the law would’ve forced drivers to pull over and cover their car if they saw a horse approaching. Should the horse still be scared of the car, the driver would have to begin disassembling the entire car until the horse had calmed down.
