Traffic obstruction
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Traffic obstruction is a common tactic used during public protests and demonstrations. The transport users affected by such disruptions are sometimes unsympathetic to the cause.


Legality

Most jurisdictions consider the obstruction of traffic an illegal activity and have developed rules to prosecute those who ''block, obstruct, impede, or otherwise interfere with the normal flow of vehicular or pedestrian traffic upon a public street or highway''. Some jurisdictions also penalize slow moving vehicle traffic. The unimpeded flow of traffic in the public road-space is often considered a common right.


Examples

Examples of intentional traffic obstructions aimed to articulate a protest agenda include
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protests, air traffic controller strike,
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,
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bicycle rides corking intersections, obstruction of rail transport of nuclear fuel in Germany, road blockades by farmers or truckers in France and other countries, impact on
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operations by the Migrant Crisis around Calais, pipeline protests (e.g.
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), etc.


Raasta roko

Raasta roko (
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
for ''obstruct the road'') is a form of protest commonly practised in
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. It usually involves large numbers of people preventing vehicular traffic from using a busy thoroughfare. Pedestrian traffic is not targeted. Rail roko is similar blocking of a railway.


See also

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Highway revolts Highway revolts (also freeway revolts, expressway revolts, or road protests) are organized protests against the planning or construction of highways, freeways, expressways, and other civil engineering projects that favor vehicles. Many freeway re ...
*
Barricade Barricade (from the French ''barrique'' - 'barrel') is any object or structure that creates a barrier or obstacle to control, block passage or force the flow of traffic in the desired direction. Adopted as a military term, a barricade denot ...
*
Protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...
*
Traffic bottleneck A traffic bottleneck is a localized disruption of vehicular traffic on a street, road, or highway. As opposed to a traffic jam, a bottleneck is a result of a specific physical condition, often the design of the road, badly timed traffic lights, ...


References

{{Reflist, 2 Traffic law Transport reliability Protest tactics Anti-road protest Civil disobedience