Such as “must signal within a reasonable time (signaling at least 300ft beforehand while not speeding is to be considered a sufficient condition for signaling within a reasonable time)”
Downside: that could make laws even longer.
Hm, what if laws had, like, in a separate document, a list of a number of examples of scenarios along with how the law is to be interpreted in those scenarios? Though I guess that’s maybe kind of the sort of thing that precedent is for?
I thought precedent was a broader term that also covers accepted practices or processes.
You're more charitable than me: I assume there will be infinitely more times where the imprecision is used for probable cause for a stop, than there will be times where someone was going to pull you over because you properly responded to a road hazard
But I think there's a difference between "intent of change" and "abuse of change" / "threat surface of the change". Sometimes there's a clear, direct line between the two, but (and this is me being charitable:) I think a lot of the time there isn't. Which is to say, I don't think it's necessarily a contradiction that a) The law was changed to make things better/easier for people while b) In actual real world it can or will be abused a lot to make arbitrary trouble - the latter will depend a lot on place/politics/corruption/culture/societal norms/power balance/etc.
The programmer in me fumes at that imprecision.
The human in me says "thank God". Because there a myriad valid times you cannot turn on signal 300ft before lane change, but you should always do it in reasonable time :)
If I turn on a new street and there's a car parked 200ft down the lane or if a kid jumps on the road or if I become aware of an obstacle or a car cuts me off or I want to give somebody room at a merge etc etc... I may not be able to do it in 300ft but I should still try to do it in reasonable time.
There's no "winning". Overly precise is inhumane in some scenarios, Overly vague is inhumane in others.