Originally Posted by
kickstart
The victim was indeed a vulnerable road user, but for the law to apply there has to be negligence in the second degree as defined by the law.
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[TD]RCW 46.61.525
Negligent driving — Second degree.
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(2) For the purposes of this section, "negligent" means the failure to exercise ordinary care, and is the doing of some act that a reasonably careful person would not do under the same or similar circumstances or the failure to do something that a reasonably careful person would do under the same or similar circumstance.
Sometimes its hard to remember the law isn't about right or wrong, its about the law.
Exactly - and in this particular case the motorist was cited for failing to stop and yield at a crosswalk as legally required. I.e. "failure to do something that a reasonably careful person would do under the same or similar circumstance."
Since that failure to stop resulted in the death of a vulnerable road user the necessary conditions for RCW 46.61.525 were met and the additional penalties should apply. But whether a jury would find the defendant guilty is a separate question as I mentioned previously.