There are a couple of games being played here that aren’t immediately apparent. Cops have probably shot themselves in the foot in some instances by simply doing what they have always done. Here is what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has to say about police traffic accident tea21programs/pages/AccidentInvest.htm. NHTSA (pronounced NITSA) is the ultimate arbitrator when it comes to police accident reports, even overcoming the laws of physics. According to NHTSA North is the Northbound direction of the Interstate Highway even when the northbound highway runs east and west. 

Let me bust this line out for you:

1. Scope. This guideline establishes the requirement that each State should have a highway safety program for accident investigation and reporting.
2. Purpose. The purpose of this guideline is to establish a uniform, comprehensive motor vehicle traffic accident investigation program for gathering information — who, what, when, where, why, and how — on motor vehicle traffic accidents and associated deaths, injuries, and property damage; and entering the information into the traffic records system for use in planning, evaluating, and furthering highway safety program goals.
3. Definitions. For the purpose of this guideline the following definitions apply:

   Accident

   an unintended event resulting in injury or damage, involving one or more motor vehicles on a highway that is publicly maintained and open to the public for vehicular travel.

   Highway

   the entire width between the boundary lines of every way publicly maintained when any part thereof is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel.

   Motor vehicle

   any vehicle driven or drawn by mechanical power manufactured primarily for use on the public streets, roads, and highways. except any vehicle operated exclusively on a rail or rails.

Huh? Suicide, some homicides and other traffic mishaps are NOT traffic accidents. If investigation shows (a suicide note) the deceased intended the result either by running out in traffic, or hitting a fixed object at a high rate of speed, then there is no traffic accident. When the Dentist’s wife catches him playing bump and tickle with the new hygienist and chases his ass around the office parking lot three time before knocking him down and then driving over the body repeatedly before leaving the car parked on his chest, there is no reportable traffic accident. Starting to see a trend here?

I am not saying that a homicide and a traffic accident are incompatible. Sometimes a car is a conveyance and sometimes it is used as a deadly weapon.

If you have 250 cops standing around drinking coffee waiting around for activists to stop drinking coffee and go out and block the roadway I would seriously question whether the road is open to the public for vehicular traffic. Since the whole purpose of sitting, lying or being otherwise in the roadway is to block the flow of traffic is it really an unintended event when somebody becomes roadkill. That is a miscalculation, not an unintended event.

Activists-freak-out-over-nd-bill-protecting-drivers-who-run-over-dakota-protesters. It strikes me that the language seems geared towards civil liability rather than criminal. 

Whether it is a rowdy crowd leaving a sporting event, a protest, a groups of sullen teenagers or a riot blocking a roadway, crossing where prohibited, walking in the roadway already puts the pedestrian in violation.