Court Opinion

ID: 9666442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:15:15.252596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:28.867937
License: Public Domain

BOB McCOY, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the result reached by the majority in this case but do not agree with one aspect of their reasoning. As recounted by the majority, section 545.060(a) of the Transportation Code reads as follows:
(a) An operator on a roadway divided into two or more clearly marked lanes for traffic:
(1) shall drive as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane; and
(2) may not move from the lane unless that movement can be made safely.
Tex. TRAnsp. Code Ann. § 545.060(a) (Vernon 1999). I cannot agree that the phrase “unless that movement can be made safely” modifies both subsections (1) and (2), as held by the majority, for the following reasons: (1) section (a) is clearly separated into two discrete sections, (1) and (2), and the language in question is clearly contained solely within the second section; (2) the separate and independent nature of the sections is emphasized by the semicolon separating the sections; (3) the term “movement” is clearly referring to the word “move” three words before the phrase begins, and that word is not contained in subsection (1); (4) if the phrase is added to the first subsection, which it purports to modify, the initial subsection would read: “shall drive as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane unless that movement can be made safely” — this is jabberwocky.1
Nevertheless, I reluctantly agree that section (a) of the Transportation Code con*506tains but one offense, enumerated as subsections (1) and (2), and that the tsunami of case law requiring some other endangering factor, besides the failure to drive in a single lane, to be a violation of the statute, is correct. Hence, I concur in the outcome as determined by the majority.

. See Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky and Other Poems 17 (Courier Dover Publications 2001).