(c) The driver of any vehicle involved in an accident resulting only in damage to a vehicle, which is driven or attended by any person, shall immediately stop such vehicle at the scene of such accident, or as close thereto as possible, and shall forthwith return to, and in every event shall remain at the scene of such accident, until he has fulfilled the requirements of paragraph (d). Every such stop shall be made without obstructing traffic more than is necessary.
(d) The driver of any vehicle involved in an accident shall give his correct name and address, and the registration number of the vehicle he is driving; and shall exhibit his operator's or chauffeur's license to the person struck, or the driver, or occupant of, or person attending any vehicle collided with and shall render to any person injured in such accident reasonable assistance. If the driver does not have an operator's or chauffeur's license in his possession he shall exhibit other valid evidence of identification to the occupants of a vehicle, or to the person collided with.
(e) The driver of any vehicle which collides with any vehicle which is unattended shall immediately stop, and shall then and there either locate and notify the operator or owner of such vehicle of the correct name and address of the driver and the owner of the vehicle striking the unattended vehicle, or shall leave in a conspicuous place in or on the vehicle struck a written notice giving the correct name and address of the driver and of the owner of the vehicle doing the striking, and shall provide the same information to an officer having jurisdiction.
(f) The driver of any vehicle involved in an accident resulting in damages to fixtures legally upon or adjacent to a highway shall take reasonable steps to locate and notify the owner or person in charge of such property, of such fact, and of his name and address, and of the registration number of the vehicle he is driving, and shall exhibit his operator's or chauffeurs license, or if said operator's or chauffeur's license is not in his possession at that time, said driver shall exhibit other valid evidence of identification, and shall make report of such accident when and as required by law.
(g) The driver of a vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to or death of any person shall immediately, by the quickest means of communication, give notice of such accident to the local police *1099department, if such accident occurs within a municipality, or to the office of the county sheriff or the nearest office of the State Highway Patrol, after complying with the requirements of paragraph (d).
Provided the provisions of this Section shall not apply to any person who is himself injured in such accident to the extent that he cannot safely and reasonably comply therewith.
It shall be deemed a misdemeanor and punishable by fine of not more than fifty dollars ($50.00) for the conviction of any person for failure to comply with the requirements of paragraphs (c), (e), (f) or (g).
The bill's title referred to this section as "establishing the requirements for drivers involved in an accident." Subsections (a) & (b) of § 121.2 provided a driver who causes an accident where there is a nonfatal injury shall stop and provide the information and assistance required in subsection (d) or they shall be guilty of a felony. Subsection (c) & (g) provided a driver who causes an accident where there is "only" vehicle damage shall stop and provide the information required in subsection (d), no assistance is required because there are no injuries, and a person who fails to do so shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. The purpose of § 121.2 was to provide requirements for drivers involved in accidents. It provided different duties based upon the type of accident as well as providing different criminal degrees of guilt for failure to provide information and/or assistance when necessary. The use of the word "only" in subsection (c) clearly limited the criminal charges to a misdemeanor if an accident only involved vehicle damage. At this time, there existed no provision for treble damages like those currently found in 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-103.
¶11 In 1961, House Bill 556 created the Highway Safety Code for the State of Oklahoma. 1961 Okla. Sess. Laws, p. 315. This bill re-codified many statutes relating to public safety and created 47 O.S. §§ 10-102, 10-102.1, 10-103, 10-104 and 10-105 in a new chapter, "Chapter 10. Accidents And Accident Reports." Title 47 O.S. 1961, § 10-103 provided:
The driver of any vehicle involved in an accident resulting only in damage to a vehicle which is driven or attended by any person shall immediately stop such vehicle at the scene of such accident or as close thereto as possible but shall forthwith return to and in every event shall remain at the scene of such accident until he has fulfilled the requirements of section 10-104. Every such stop shall be made without obstructing traffic more than is necessary. Any person failing to stop or comply with said requirements under such circumstances shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
The bill titled this section "Accidents Involving Damage to Vehicle." The re-codification left the pertinent language, formerly found in subsections (c) and (g) of § 121.2, relatively intact. The focus remained on establishing the duties of a driver who collides with an attended vehicle. It provided such person who fails to perform those duties will be guilty of a misdemeanor where there was only vehicle damage. The apparent purpose of the "accident resulting only in damage to a vehicle" language was to limit the degree of crime to a misdemeanor and to distinguish this crime from the felony crimes for hit-and-run accidents causing a nonfatal injury or death.
¶12 Title 47 O.S. 1961, § 10-103 has only been amended once since its enactment. HB 1458 (1987) amended § 10-103 to add a specific punishment provision, to provide the current scheme for treble damages and to authorize a court to order restitution. 1987 Okla. Sess. Laws, c. 224, § 15. The amendment is current law and provided in part, "[i]n addition to the criminal penalties imposed by this section, any person violating the provisions of this section shall be subject to liability for damages in the amount equal to three times the value of the damage caused by the accident." No other section in Chapter 10 provides treble damages.
¶13 Title 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-1023 and § 10-102.14 provide the duties and penalties for *1100drivers involved in nonfatal and fatal accidents, respectively. Both require the driver to stop and produce information as well as provide necessary assistance pursuant to 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-104. Willfully, maliciously or feloniously failing to perform such duties, upon conviction, constitutes a felony. Neither section requires a collision with another vehicle or mentions vehicle damage. Title 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-1055 provides duties for drivers who collide with an unattended vehicle. This section contains no criminal penalties for failure to comply with these duties nor does it provide for any damages in a civil action.
¶14 The purpose behind Chapter 10 is to provide a procedural framework for those involved in an accident and to provide criminal penalties for drivers who leave the scene of an accident without performing the duties required by 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-104. The degree of crime for a violation of those duties depends on the type of damage/injury incurred. A driver who collides with an attended vehicle and leaves the scene without complying with § 10-104 shall be guilty of a misdemeanor if there was only vehicle damage. If a driver causes injury or death and does not provide the required information and/or assistance they will, upon conviction, be guilty of a felony regardless if he or she hit another vehicle. In addition, if there is vehicle damage, the driver will be subject to treble damages in a civil action based upon the damage to the vehicle. The civil action is a separate cause of action provided under 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-103.
¶15 Our interpretation of the relevant sections of Chapter 10 harmonizes those sections and avoids an absurd result. The limiting language in 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-103, "accident resulting only in damage to a vehicle," has historically been used to distinguish the degree of crime, i.e., a misdemeanor when there is only vehicle damage rather than a felony when a nonfatal injury or death occurs. The later enacted treble damages provision is available when there is an accident involving damage to an attended vehicle and the driver causing the accident does not comply with 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-104. The obvious public policy behind the treble damages provision is to provide an added level of deterrence against hit-and-run drivers who damage attended vehicles. The term "nonfatal injury" is also not defined in Chapter 10. This deterrence would ring hollow if a victim was prevented from bringing a civil action for treble damages just because they also suffered an injury, no matter how minor the injury. Our interpretation avoids the absurd result of barring an award of treble damages for a hit-and-run accident involving an attended vehicle when the victim was also injured. We do not believe the legislative intent behind the later enacted treble damages provision was to limit this provision to accidents where there are no injuries.
IV. CONCLUSION
¶16 When a driver collides with an attended vehicle and fails to perform the duties required under 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-104, that driver, in a civil action, shall be liable for treble damages based upon the damage sustained to the vehicle. This is in addition to any criminal penalties which may be imposed *1101upon such driver. This interpretation maintains the public policy behind 47 O.S. 2011, § 10-103 and avoids an absurd result. The judgment of the district court is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS CONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION
¶17 Gurich, C.J., Edmondson, Colbert, Reif, Combs, JJ., concur.
¶18 Wyrick, V.C.J., dissents (writing separately), Kauger, Winchester, Darby, JJ., dissent.
Wyrick, V.C.J., with whom Winchester, J., joins, dissenting:
¶1 Section 10-103 is not ambiguous. It plainly says that treble damages may be sought against "any person violating the provisions of this section."1 It says nothing about violations of other sections, and those other sections say nothing about treble damages. The only relevant question is thus whether Jake Watkins violated section 10-103.
¶2 The majority never answers that question.2 It instead assumes that Watkins violated a different section, but concludes that despite what the Legislature said, it actually meant that the treble-damages provision applies to "any person violating the provisions of this section or any other section ."
¶3 The majority arrives at this counter-textual conclusion by employing an all-too-familiar interpretive device: when a statute doesn't say what the Court thinks it ought to say, it declares the statute ambiguous and then, under the guise of ascertaining "legislative intent," resolves the so-called ambiguity by assigning to the statute whatever meaning aligns with the Court's policy preferences.3
*1102¶4 This isn't the interpretation of a statute; it's the drafting and codifying of a statute. This conflation of judicial and legislative roles raises serious separation-of-powers concerns that ought to give us pause. I respectfully dissent, and write separately to urge the Court to abandon its atextual interpretive approach.
I.
¶5 The majority declares that " § 10-103 is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation and is therefore ambiguous,"4 but it never quite explains how this is so, other than to point to Mr. McIntosh's entirely unsubstantiated claim that the Legislature probably intended for treble damages to be available for all hit-and-run accidents. That claim, however, tells us nothing about the clarity of the text. It is instead made in an attempt to avoid the plain text, which is neither unclear nor susceptible to more than one meaning.
¶6 The first sentences of sections 10-102, 10-102.1, and 10-103 describe the sort of accident to which each section applies. Section 10-102 applies to "accident[s] resulting in a nonfatal injury to any person."5 Section 10-102.1 applies to "accident[s] resulting in the death of any person."6 Section 10-103 applies to "accident[s] resulting only in damage to a vehicle which is driven or attended by any person."7
¶7 Each section then imposes certain duties upon a driver involved in such an accident and describes the criminal penalties available for failure to comply with those duties. Violators of section 10-103 can be charged with a misdemeanor, while violators of sections 10-102 and 10-102.1 can be charged with a felony.8
¶8 Section 10-103 then contains a civil remedy provision that the other two sections lack: "In addition to the criminal penalties imposed by this section , any person violating the provisions of this section shall be subject to liability for damages in an amount equal to three times the value of the damage caused by the accident. Said damages shall be recoverable in a civil action."9 The Legislature was quite clear with the words they chose for this treble-damages provision. It applies to "any person violating the provisions of this section," and as explained above, "this section" is the section that applies to accidents "resulting only in damage to a vehicle,"10 as opposed to accidents resulting in only personal injury or resulting in both damage to a vehicle and personal injury.11 The Legislature's decision to omit this treble-damages provision from the sections governing accidents resulting in personal injury leaves no doubt that the Legislature intended it to apply only to violations of section 10-103.
¶9 Again, the majority never explains how this text is reasonably susceptible to more than one interpretation, nor can I imagine any reasonable way to read "this section" as actually saying "this section or any other section ."12 The majority offers a recitation of the statute's history, but everything about that history undermines, rather than strengthens, the majority's claim of ambiguity.
*1103It is true that the relevant sections of law were once combined into a single section of law that the Legislature later split into separate sections, each governing a particular type of accident-i.e., accidents "resulting only in damage to a vehicle which is driven or attended by any person" ( section 10-103 ), accidents "resulting in a nonfatal injury" ( section 10-102 ), and accidents "resulting in the death of any person" ( section 10-102.1 ). The fact, however, that the Legislature added the treble damages after splitting the sections apart, and added the treble damages to only one section while specifying that it applied to that section only, is slam-dunk evidence that the Legislature intended treble damages to be available exclusively for violations of section 10-103.
¶10 Because section 10-103 is not ambiguous, our duty is to put aside any concerns we may have with the policy articulated by the text and to apply the statute precisely as drafted and enacted by the Legislature and as approved by the Governor.13 If the Legislature wishes to rethink its treble-damages policy, it can do so through the procedures for making new law that are mandated by our Constitution.
II.
¶11 The majority next seeks to avoid the plain meaning of section 10-103 by declaring that the plain meaning is "absurd," a finding that the majority believes goes hand in hand with its finding of ambiguity. But it should go without saying that the text of a statute cannot simultaneously be ambiguous and absurd. An ambiguous statute, after all, is one that is susceptible to more than one reasonable meaning.14 If a statute can be read one way that is quite reasonable, but another way that is quite absurd, then by definition it is not ambiguous. That is why the absurdity canon "should not be confused with a useful technique for resolving ambiguities in statutory language" because it "properly 'applies to unambiguous statutes.' "15
¶12 Even when applicable, the absurdity canon provides a very narrow exception to our duty to apply the plain meaning of a statute, "where the result of applying the plain language would be, in a genuine sense, absurd, i.e., where it is quite impossible that [the Legislature] could have intended the result"16 -conditions that are not met here.
*1104As Chief Justice John Marshall explained almost two centuries ago, "if, in any case, the plain meaning of a provision, ... is to be disregarded, because we believe the framers of that instrument could not intend what they say, it must be one in which the absurdity and injustice of applying the provision to the case, would be so monstrous, that all mankind would, without hesitation, unite in rejecting the application."17
¶13 The absurdity canon is thus an escape hatch to be opened only in the rarest of cases where the text leads to " 'patently absurd consequences' that [the Legislature] could not possibly have intended,"18 rather than in cases where the Court merely thinks a policy embodied in a statute is unwise. An oft-cited example of a statute that would fit the bill is one that provides that the "winning party" rather than the "losing party" must pay the other side's reasonable attorney's fees.19 As the Tenth Circuit has put it, in such a case:
the error in the statute is so "unthinkable" that any reasonable reader would know immediately both (1) that it contains a "technical or ministerial" mistake, and (2) the correct meaning of the text. When these demanding conditions are met, a court may invoke the [absurdity] doctrine to enforce the statute's plain meaning, much as it might in cases where a modifier is misplaced or the grammar otherwise mangled but the meaning plain to any reasonable reader. Cabined in this way, the absurdity doctrine seeks to serve a "linguistic rather than substantive" function, and does not depend nearly as much on doubtful claims about legislative intentions, risk nearly as much interference with the separation of powers, or pose anything like the same sort of fair notice problems as its more virulent cousin. Instead, it aims only to enforce a meaning reasonable parties would have thought plain all along.20
¶14 Nothing about this case fits that bill. As its basis for declaring absurdity, the majority merely concludes that it makes sense to have treble damages available in all cases and that, as such, the Legislature could not possibly have intended to enact a statute that did anything else:
The obvious public policy behind the treble damages provision is to provide an added level of deterrence against hit-and-run drivers who damage attended vehicles.... This deterrence would ring hollow if a victim was prevented from bringing a civil action for treble damages just because they also suffered an injury, no matter how minor the injury. Our interpretation avoids the absurd result of barring an award of treble damages for a hit-and-run accident involving an attended vehicle when the victim was also injured. We do not believe the legislative intent behind the later enacted treble damages provision was to limit this provision to accidents where there are no injuries.21
Not only is this conclusion not remotely sufficient as a basis for invoking the absurdity canon, it is also incorrect. The treble damages provision may well provide a theoretical *1105level of deterrence to hit-and-run drivers who damage attended vehicles, and that may well be why the Legislature added the provision. But it is not true that deterrence would ring hollow if treble damages were not permitted in personal injury cases. First, the deterrent effect in property damage cases is not diminished by the unavailability of treble damages in other cases. Second, whatever deterrent effect that exists likely carries over to those other cases because a fleeing hit-and-run driver cannot know for certain whether anyone was injured. So in the world imagined by the majority where potential hit-and-run drivers are actually aware of the treble-damages provision such that it might deter them from fleeing, a rational driver would have to assume that he will be subject to treble damages until he knows for certain that he will not be. And the only way to know that is to stop, rather than run.
¶15 Nor is it true there is no rational explanation for omitting the treble-damages provision from the personal-injury sections. It is certainly possible that the Legislature declined to add the treble-damages provision to the personal-injury-accident sections because more than adequate financial deterrents are available in the personal-injury context, where the negligent driver can be sued for non-economic and punitive damages. So the deterrence wouldn't "ring hollow" in the personal injury context if treble property damages were unavailable, but rather would flow from other civil remedies that are available to the injured party.
¶16 In sum, because the majority believes that section 10-103 is ambiguous, the absurdity canon has no place in this case. But even if it did, the majority simply disagrees with the policy choice embodied by the plain language of section 10-103, and that sort of disagreement does not come close to triggering the absurdity canon.
III.
¶17 These misapplications of the ambiguity and absurdity doctrines are symptomatic of an atextual interpretive approach that repeatedly rears its head in cases where the plain meaning of a statute strikes a majority of this Court as unwise. I fear that this atextual approach invites criticism that the Court has lost its way as an institution devoted to merely saying what the law is, rather than what it ought to be.
¶18 No doubt, the Court sometimes properly emphasizes that determining the meaning of a statute "begins with the text of the statute and-absent unresolvable ambiguity-ends with the text" and that its job "is to determine the ordinary meaning of the words that the Legislature chose in the provisions of law at issue."22 But in cases where the plain meaning of the text leads to a result the Court does not like, the Court changes the question from "What did the Legislature enact?" to "What did the Legislature intend?"23 -a shift in interpretive approach that opens the door to the Court injecting its policy *1106preferences under the guise of ascertaining the Legislature's intent.
¶19 The hodgepodge interpretive standard invoked by the majority demonstrates how this is so. The majority first declares that "the primary goal of statutory construction is to ascertain and to apply the intent of the Legislature that enacted the statute,"24 thus shifting the inquiry away from ascertaining what law the Legislature actually enacted, in favor of ascertaining what law the Legislature intended to require. This might be less problematic if the Court simply undertook to cold-bloodedly ascertain the Legislature's intent, letting the chips fall where they may. But that is not what the Court does. It instead seeks to ascertain an intent that is "reasonable and sensible" (or not "absurd"),25 which transforms the inquiry away from determining the Legislature's intent and toward determining what the Court would have intended were it the lawmaker.26 And because the majority views the text of the statute as merely one of many pieces of evidence-and a piece that can seemingly be discarded altogether once a declaration of ambiguity is made-the Court finds itself entirely unconstrained in assigning to the Legislature the intent of its choosing.27
¶20 None of this would be possible if the Court properly focused on the text. The text is what was read aloud and debated on the legislative floor, approved by majority vote, and sent to the Governor for executive approval, all per the "single, finely wrought and exhaustively considered, procedure" our Constitution commands.28 The text of the statute isn't mere evidence of what the law is, it is the law, and it is the sole legitimate expression of the Legislature's intent. If the law is not the words that the Legislature enacted, but rather whatever intent resided in the minds of this legislator or that, then we need not bother with statute books because the law resides elsewhere, perhaps up in the clouds where if only we stare long enough we will see the law we want to see. But fundamental to due process is notice of what the law is. Our citizens must know where to look to find the law, and they should be able to expect that the law means what it plainly says. A system of laws that requires our citizens to read the minds of legislators (or judges) in order to know the law is a system of laws that is fundamentally incompatible with American notions of fair play and substantial justice.
¶21 Today's decision is a three-card-monte-like application of ambiguity, absurdity, and intentionalism to reach a result that was fully baked: treble damages for everyone. What this case demonstrates is that it is all too easy to craft perfectly logical and sound policies from the isolation of judicial chambers. Legislators, however, labor in protester-filled hallways, lobbyist-filled offices, and legislator-filled *1107chamber floors, where "often and by design it is 'hard-fought compromise[ ],' not cold logic, that supplies the solvent needed for a bill to survive the legislative process."29 As such, "[i]f courts felt free to pave over bumpy statutory texts in the name of more expeditiously advancing a policy goal, we would risk failing to 'tak[e] ... account of' legislative compromises essential to a law's passage and, in that way, thwart rather than honor 'the effectuation of [legislative] intent.' "30 Today's majority has done just that.
* * *
¶22 For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.