sggoodri

My point is that finding the correct legal definition for procession and holding the police to it is the key to protecting the rights of cyclists who travel in groups *and* upholding the police departments' ability to enforce the actual traffic laws that do improve public safety. Police must take actions and judges must make legal decisions based on what the law actually says. If there is no applicable legal definition for procession, then common-use dictionary definitions may apply. The relevant Webster's dictionary definition is "a group of individuals moving along in an orderly often ceremonial way". The American Heritage dictionary definition that is applicable is "A group of persons, vehicles, or objects moving along in an orderly, formal manner." Here the important distinction is the orderly, formal, ceremonial nature of the movement, since traffic control devices and intruding traffic would ordinarily disrupt the geometric arrangement of the procession, as in the case of a parade or funeral procession.

The citizens have the established right to assemble peacefully, and they have the right to travel from one place to another. This implies that they must have the right to travel in the vicinity of one another, as long as they obey the traffic laws. When traveling in such a manner they are simply traffic. Only when they must violate the usual rules of the road to stay together and/or in a particular formation are they unusual from a traffic safety standpoint, and therefore justifiably considered a procession.