Title 75. Vehicle Code. (Excerpt relating to Police Powers)
§ 6109. Specific powers of
department and local authorities.
(a) Enumeration of Police
Powers The provisions of this title shall not be deemed to prevent the
department on State designated highways and local authorities on streets or
highways within their physical boundaries from the reasonable exercise of their
police powers. The following are presumed to be reasonable exercises of
police powers:
(1) Regulating or prohibiting stopping, standing or parking.
(2) Regulating traffic by means of police officers or official traffic control devices.
(3) Regulating or prohibiting processions or assemblages on highways.
(4) Designating particular highways or roadways for use by traffic moving in
one direction as authorized in Section 3308 (relating to one way roadways and
rotary traffic islands).
(6) Designating any highway as a through highway or designating any
intersection or junction of roadways as a stop or yield intersection or junction.
(7) Prohibiting or restricting the use of highways at particular places or
by particular classes of vehicles whenever the highway or portion of the
highway may be seriously damaged by the use or the movement of the vehicles
would constitute a safety hazard.
(8) Regulating the operation of pedalcycles and requiring their registration
and inspection, and the payment of a reasonable registration fee.
(9) Regulating or prohibiting the turning of vehicles or specified types of
vehicles as authorized in Section 3331 (relating to required position and
method of turning).
(13) Prohibiting or regulating the use of designated streets by any class or
kind of traffic.
(15) Regulating and temporarily prohibiting traffic on streets closed or
restricted for construction, maintenance or special events.
(16) Prohibiting pedestrians from crossing a roadway in a business district
or any designated highway except in a crosswalk.
(17) Restricting pedestrian crossings at unmarked crosswalks.
(18) Regulating persons propelling push carts.
(19) Regulating persons upon skates, coasters, sleds and other toy vehicles.
(20) Adopting and enforcing such temporary or experimental regulations as may
be necessary to cover emergencies or special considerations.
Title 18. Crimes Code.
§ 5507. Obstructing highways and other public passages
(a) A person, who, having
no legal privilege to do so, intentionally or recklessly obstructs any highway,
railroad track or public utility right-of-way, sidewalk, navigable waters,
other public passage, whether alone or with others, commits a summary offense,
or, in case he persists after warning by a law officer, a misdemeanor of the
third degree. No person shall be deemed guilty of an offense under this
subsection solely because of a gathering of persons to hear him speak or
otherwise communicate, or solely because of being a member of such a gathering.
(b) Refusal to move on.
(1) A person in a gathering commits a summary offense if he refuses to obey a
reasonable official request to move:
(i) To prevent obstruction of a highway or other public passage; or
(ii) To maintain public safety by dispersing those gathered in dangerous
proximity to a fire or other hazard.
(2) An order to move, addressed to a person whose speech or other lawful
behavior attracts an obstructing audience, shall not be deemed reasonable if
the obstruction can be readily remedied by police control of the size or
location of the gathering.
(c) Definition – As used
in this section the word “obstructs” means renders impassable without
unreasonable inconvenience or hazard.