Drivers who run into protesters would be protected from lawsuits under new proposed legislation in Tennessee.

The bill offered by a pair of Republicans would apply only to instances in which drivers are “exercising due care” when they strike someone “participating in a protest or demonstration” that is “blocking traffic in a public right-of-way.”

A second clause in the half-page bill clarifies, “A person shall not be immune from civil liability if the actions leading to the injury were willful or wanton.”

That distinction sometimes can be fuzzy. Last month, a man drove through a group of protesters in Nashville and wound up with several of them on his hood. He said they jumped onto the car, they said he struck them.

The new bill is similar to one offered in January by a North Dakota legislator who said his mother-in-law’s path was blocked by protesters opposed to an oil pipeline.

“There’s a line between protesting and terrorism, and what we’re dealing with was terrorism out there,” North Dakota state Rep. Keith Kempenich, a Republican, told The Washington Post about his bill.

The Tennessee lawmakers appeared less inclined to give interviews as their bill attracted substantial attention on Monday, though they did release prepared statements.

Tennessee state Sen. Bill Ketron said in his statement “citizens have the right to protest” but that “[p]rotesters have no right to be in the middle of the road or our highways for their own safety and the safety of the traveling public.”

State Rep. Matthew Hill, meanwhile, called the bill “common-sense legislation” and “a public safety bill that is meant to protect everyone’s right to peacefully protest.”

Hill clarified: “We are not endorsing anyone running over a person with a car, whether it is protesters or anyone else. If someone intentionally harms a person, they are going to be charged with a crime, period.”

A spokeswoman for Ketron said he is only giving interviews about the bill to publications based within his Murfreesboro district. Nobody answered the the phone at Hill’s office or his cellphone.

