You may recall that exactly one year ago today, John Doe Jr. related that a Roseville Michigan man was issued a citation by police for warming up his car in his driveway.  It turned out that a rather broadly defined part of the Uniform Traffic Code allowed a police officer to come up your driveway or any parking lot to cite any car running without the operator being immediately around.  Here was that law:

The man found a less than sympathetic district court  judge rule against him in April, but he appealed it and found a sympathetic circuit court judge whose wise opinion is here,  who made a decision in September.  The man's lawyer crowed at his Facebook website:  

"MAJOR NEWS! ****ROSEVILLE "CAR-WARMING" TICKET APPEAL WON!!! *****
My client Nick Taylor and I have been completely VINDICATED!
Macomb County Circuit court judge Caretti reversed Roseville district court Judge Santia finding that the UTC Rule 458 "leaving a vehicle running unattended" was never meant to apply to one's own private driveway!
Even though the Michigan legislature CHANGED THE LAW after we lost at district court, I stood by my client that we were RIGHT ALL A LONG and the law never needed to be changed!What a battle it has been! After multiple court hearings, Being held in contempt by the lower court, Officer Kevin Keary Badge #282 LYING UNDER OATH, after my client facing death threats from Roseville Police Department Chief of police on Live TV .... We WON!"

And that was definitely good news for Nick, but you may wonder about his statement that the State legislature had changed the law between the two judgments.  IT'S TRUE!  (as the attorney might say)

HB 4215 was proposed a month after the hubbub of the Roseville incident and became law before the end of June. This simple reworking of a section of the Michigan Motor Vehicle Code (MVC) did two things effectively.  It totally rescinded the ambiguous administrative rule shown above which seemed to allow tickets for warming care up, and updated the wording of a similar MVC section 676 about leaving cars standing on highways:

"... This section does not apply to a vehicle that is standing in place and is equipped with a remote start feature, if the remote start feature is engaged."

All you have to figure out now is whether you really need to warm up your car in winter.  If you have a car with fuel-injection, your car does not need it.  Letting it run may actually be bad for it.  If you have an older car with a carburetor, it should be warmed up for a few minutes.  In either case, you may need it if you have an aversion to getting in a cold car with frosted glass.  

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I'm glad they law was changed however from what I have read the revised version of the law makes no sense. How does one "stop" a motor? Lasso it? Not much thought went into revising this law which has very little meaning in my opinion.

Yes, I remember that incident and very rude and boisterous District Court Judge too on video. Anyone that hasn't seen it, please review our archives, as it is very disturbing. Maybe you can bring it back to us again X, as it was quite amazing to see any judge acting that way in the courtroom. Not the least bit objective and polite as I recall.

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