From the WSJ Opinion Archives
OPINIONJOURNAL FEDERATION
Mother, Judge and Speed
Having a baby? That's no excuse for driving like a maniac.
Someone's been watching too many old sitcoms:
The labor pains were coming, so Jessica Hodges got going. The 26-year-old bank teller from Burke sped toward Inova Fairfax Hospital, but before she got there, the law got her--57 mph in a 35 zone. Reckless driving.Now hear this: despite what Fred Flintstone did when Wilma went into labor, there is no reason to speed to the hospital just because a pregnant woman starts having contractions. First, almost all labors last hours, not minutes. Second, in general, the longer one stays away from the hospital, the better. One reason C-section rates are so high in the U.S. is because overeager soon-to-be mothers (and their worried partners) insist on going to the hospital during the early stages of labor, and many hospitals have formal or informal policies of not letting a woman labor there for more than a certain number of hours.Hodges's labor pains subsided--they turned out to be a false alarm--but the agony from her ticket is mounting. She was found guilty of the July 3 offense and given a $1,050 civil fee on top of a judge-imposed $100 fine and court costs, making her one of the first to be hit with Virginia's new "abusive driver fees," which have been greeted by widespread public outrage.
"It's crazy," said an unregretful Hodges. "Having a baby's more important. Of course I'm going to speed."
If a pregnant woman is in a safe indoor location and the baby is actually coming out, she still shouldn't rush, or be rushed to the hospital. Call 911 instead; better to give birth at home with paramedics around than to give birth in a car stuck in traffic with no medical assistance in the vicinity. (I'm not making this stuff up; I learned it all while my wife was pregnant. For what it's worth, I was born prematurely on the bedroom floor after a less than 10-minute labor, with the physician who fortunately lived across the street assisting after the birth.)
Oh, and if a woman is sufficiently deep into labor that it makes sense to go to the hospital, for God's sake don't let her drive herself there! A woman having massive contractions every few minutes while worrying about her impending delivery has to be the very definition of a distracted driver. The new Virginia fines for speeding are excessive, but kudos to the judge in this case for not buying the "I was in false labor so I had to speed" excuse.
Mr. Bernstein is a law professor at George Mason University.
