genec

The civil suit against the driver is what the DA wants... however one might wonder why not a civil suit against the DA for not doing his job.

howsteepisit

Or maybe the DA has determined that the accident did not rise to the level of criminality? The reason for the 2 pronged legal system is so that victims can be compensated for losses, and for acts which deviate from a social standard are deemed criminal. This 2 pronged approach is why after a crinianl trial civil trials often occur for the same event and is not considered double jeopardy. Most civil awards do not include a punitive award.

genec

The problem of "not rising to the level of criminality" is that means that the driver can continue in their poor driving ways... to possibly go out and kill another. Civil cases do not remove driving licenses and such... Therefore driver can go on killing anyone else they don't see.

howsteepisit

I personally have no issue with increased traffic code enforcement. In fact I believe that we as a society 9in the US) need to ramp up traffic enforcements by a great deal. But I am not of the belief that anytime a road user is killed or injured that criminal charges should be filed. I really think that in actual practice those who cry out for criminal charges in traffic here on BF would be a bit less vitriolic about needing criminal charges filed if it was them or a close relative who through carelessness, or just a mistake or error in judgement resulted in the death or injury of another road user.

genec

Perhaps, but indeed I am of the opinion that those that have killed with a motor vehicle should no longer have the privilege to drive. Would we tend to "look the other way" if the "mistake or error in judgement" resulting in death were to happen with a gun or knife?

And in fact I want drivers out there being less "casual" about their driving... such that they work to avoid "a mistake or error in judgement."

howsteepisit

Might want to ask Dick Cheney about the charges if you were to accidentally shoot someone in the face while hunting. and revocation of a drivers license is not relates to criminal activity ( me drawing a distinction between criminal activity and traffic violations). And frankly equating cars to weapons is so far out on the fringe of social thought there is no argument from me on this, thankfully most people do not equate an inadvertent driving error with misuse of weapons.

TheManShow

When I lived in California one of the tricks the voting public heard every election years was how tough DA's were on criminals. Ads would say the DA had a 98.5% conviction rate. Wow that sounds so tough on crime.

Truth was that was the case they prosecuted, plea bargained. They never advertised how many people we charge with felonies, or hard misdamenior, and walked aware free.

Reason was they did not have funds to proscicute a meaninless care, the evedence was not good enought for a 100% slam dunk conviction, the case was not high profile so it was just not pursued for proscicution, or the cops screwed up during the arrest on something like handling of evidence, or violating the suspect rights.

Trust me this is why Cops quit being Cops, they get burned out arresting bad people who do bad thing, only to have the system release these people back into society do do crimes over & over.

Our Border Patrol Agents have the same fustration with illeagles who they have stopped 5 or 6 times crossing into the US illegally. They arrest em, deport them, and fell like a fly fisherman on a catch & release stream in Montana.

genec

Oddly enough, both guns and cars kill roughly the same number of people in the US... (cars kill more, actually) and only one of those is designed to kill. BTW Cheney did not kill his buddy... and my point was about those who do kill.

youngbull

its a shame. if you're not driving under the influence then the government doesn't care because theres no money to be made off of you. but if you are clean, then you have a license to kill and you will have no repercussions.

McBTC

Take the bike out of the equation and anyone's death is a sad thing, right? Probably more pedestrians, runners -- even motorcyclists -- are run down by automobiles in greater numbers than cyclists and no doubt there probably are far more deaths among other innocent fellow automobile drivers. It's not even certain if an 82 year woman or a 16 year old teen with a cell phone is the greater danger to the rest of us on the roads.

JoeyBike

Any info on ACCIDENTAL deaths by gunshots? I believe that if you subtract the number of intentional killings by gun and car and only count the "accidental" variety, people driving cars would be many, many times more likely to kill accidentally than people holding guns in the USofA.

FBinNY 

The guns and cars comparisons are totally meaningless. First more people own and drive cars than own guns. Then People drive daily whereas guns spend most of the time idle.

In any case, neither cars nor guns kill people. People kill people through carelessness (not counting intentional), and the fact is that people are generally careless with things they consider safe, and more careful with things they consider dangerous (most of us are no different about various bicycle riding situations).

So part (or most) of the challenge is reminding people of the driving dangers. Ironically, so much has improved in terms of the safety of occupants, that it's probably increased the comfort factor and made driving MORE dangerous for those on the outside.

On the bright side, even short of self driving cars, continued progress on and integration of forward and side warning systems should lead to reductions of many classes of collisions.

If I were king, one of the changes I'd make, would be to use the electronic technology to measure the lag between the detection of a problem and the driver's response. Too much lag too often would lead to a warning of being inattentive or too tired to continue and give the driver a short time to find a place and shut it down. Or maybe the info could be sent to insurance companies to let them know they have an inept, or distracted client likelier to be in a collision.

OldTryGuy

Since when does a person need a driver's license to drive a vehicle? My understanding is that one doesn't need insurance either.

genec

Yes, the guns vrs cars thing is a red herring... there really is no comparison.

However... as cars kill more folks than guns, isn't it ironic that there is no cry for "car control?"

curbtender

The states issue these people a license. Why is this not their fault?

FBinNY 

There is car control in the form of licenses, and advocates of tighter gun control might consider how effective that turned out to be.

We don't need mote control of things, we need better control of people. Unfortunately effective "people control" has to come from within.

I-Like-To-Bike

No it is not. But of course there may be somewhere a hysterical HennyPenny who might cry out with such wacky illogical reasoning.

JustinJK

Out-of-control vehicle fatally strikes bicyclist, leaves 3 others injured in Brooklyn

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.2290341

I wonder what will happen to this poor unfortunate SUV driver....
Out of control for 3 NYC blocks full of rush hour traffic? Really? And made it that far?

FBinNY 

Unfortunately the reporting is somewhat murky since instead of referring to the various cars clearly as a Hinda Pilot, or Mitshbishi (uber car?) or whatever, the reporter flipflopped to SUV (which was that) so I can't tell for sure if the offending driver (pilot?) was injured, or managed to flee the scene.

Over all, it sounds like a hit and run gone bad, and if the police can reconstruct it as that, I expect the driver will be charged with a homicide.

JustinJK

Check out the video on this link. The high speed blur is the Honda SUV.
Cyclist Killed, 6 Hurt in Crash Near Barclays Center: FDNY | NBC New York

TheManShow

I drove over the road a couple of yearsafter the internet killed my business off. We were given safety bonuses for being accident free. I soon learned ever scratching a trailers door on a loading dock was considered a accident.

The people who investigated all accidents, and decided if you were accident free. Classified all accident as preventable, and no preventable.

Being held to this high standard mast accidents are preventable. Thing like speed, california stops, unsafe lane change, loss of controol like on ice, show or rain are all causes of preventable accidents.

genec

My point being that while the American public raises noise about things like gun control or even terrorists, they totally overlook one of the bigger killers out there... the family car. The power to "control" this killer is in the hands of every driver.... yet the hew and cry is "it's the other guy" that is the problem.