gbenth

Just FYI about another accident that could have been prevented. Check
out https://www.savagehillcycling.com/. A lone rider out on a training
ride had his handle bars clipped by a passing pickup truck. NO charges
filed against the driver of the pickup.
Don't the cops understand that thay
are paid by all of us, not just "people" driving cars.

madpogue 

The fact that it could have been prevented is exactly why it was NOT an "accident". The feds have used the word "crash" instead of "accident" for the past ten-ish years for just this reason. Unfortunately, many state and local authorities, and most egregiously the media, continue to use what has become the deprecated, archaic term "accident". This man's death tragically underscores this point.

John E

I encourage anyone living anywhere near the area to contact the highway patrol and/or the district attorney, to lobby that vehicular manslaughter charges be filed. Letters to the editors of local newspapers are also helpful.

Roughstuff

I am a bit perplexed madpogue. Could you explain in more detail? It seems with a zillion people killed on the highways every year the Feds are hung up on which word to use. When I read about an 'accident' the issue is not whether 'it could have been prevented.' The question is whether it was intentional---ya know, like Teddy leaving Mary Jo in the drink a few decades ago---or (drum roll please) accidental.

On my bike I have had several unpleasant encounters with cars. I, um, uh, duh, crashed headon with a vehicle when I was in Japan. It was an accident: in fact it was my fault. There were quick decisions I had to make, and I made one or two wrong ones: but only with 100% hindsight.

roughstuff

madpogue 

The logic behind the Feds' use of "crash" is that even when there isn't intent involved, it's preventable. Either somebody screwed up (which is negligence, not an "accident"), or equipment failed (which is negligence of another form), or there's an infrastructure design problem (e.g. speed limit too high for conditions, too narrow or too wide a lane, etc.). Using the word "crash" instead of "accident" is intended to put focus on what could have been done differently to prevent the crash.

supcom

It is incorrect to state that a preventable crash is not an accident. Any crash is an accident if it was not the intent of the driver to crash the vehicle. If you study accident details, I believe you will find that nearly all automobile accidents stem from preventable causes. High on the list of these are excessive speed, failure to yield the right of way, distraction due to cell phone use, etc.

I would estimate that a small percentage of automobile accidents are caused by 'non-preventable' circumstances. Things like tire blowouts, brake failure, steering malfunctions happen, but not nearly as often as simple driver errors.

This leaves DUIs which, when there is injury, are often treated as intentional even though the driver generally did not intend to hurt anyone since the driver should have known that he was incapable of safely driving the vehicle.

Generally, we do not put people in jail for causing an accident (except for DUI) even if that accident is caused through negligence. Would anyone suggest a cyclist be prosecuted for assault if he turns is head at the wrong time and hits a pedestrian crossing the street? That would be a case of a preventable accident. What about if that same accident killed the pedestrian? Should the cyclist be charged with murder?

I should think not.

madpogue 

I suppose it boils down to one's interpretation of "accident". The new thinking is that "accident" implies "not preventable", so they don't use it anymore.

These are actually considered preventable as well; mechanical malfunctions can be traced to a cause, related either to manufacture, maintenance, misuse, etc.

You would think wrong. No, it's not assault or murder, but it's injury or homicide by negligent use of a vehicle (also know as "vehicular homicide" in some jurisdictions). You can bet that if you kill someone while operating a vehicle, even when not impaired, you're gonna face a felony charge. Turning your head at the wrong time, thereby striking and killing a pedestrian is negligent use of a vehicle; it doesn't matter if the vehicles is motorized or not.

Roughstuff

The more i hear about this new thinking, the more I realize it is not thinking at all. All events are traceable to a cause; we may not know what those causes are at this or that point in time, but unless we are talking about quantum mechanics, every effect is preceded by a cause. Thus by the definition of these new thinkers---and me suspecteth they are your typical anti-fossil fuel luddites, as well as personal injury lawyers trolling for lawsuits---there can be no such thing as an accident.

Given that parts fail in statistical patterns that are understandable in the aggregate but not predictable as singular events, I am sure there are classic examples of accidents caused by mechanical failure. What seems to upset the neo-thinks is the asymmtrical results of these accidents. Whether a bike 'runs a light' and hits a car, or a car 'runs a light' and hits a bike, we all know what the results will be. Your choice is to live with this asymmetry or to die with it..

roughstuff

gbenth

Semantics, Semantics, Semantics. What I'm saying is that a person was hit, run off the road and died. The local cop knew who did it and that it was wrong and did not site (charge) them. I don't care how you term it that person is dead and the person in the pick-up caused his death.

Chris L

There is also a third category that should be considered -- Reckless. This is where someone simply does not care either way what happens. They won't intentionally go out of their way to cause trouble, but nor will they take any care to avoid it. Given that most incidents of this type are caused by exactly this sort of behaviour, I think it's about time this was given greater consideration.

Ultimately, the question to be asked should not be one of intent (as there is bugger all hope of ever proving that in anycase), the question should be whether the party in question has taken sufficient care and done all they could have reasonably been expected to do to avoid the incident in the first place. To my mind, if someone has failed to exercise this standard of caution, it can be no accident.

The thing is, if I exercise this sort of negligence in my profession, I will be on the receiving end of a lawsuit. So tell me why the ambulance chasers have not jumped all over this one with regard to driving? What are they afraid of -- setting a legal precedent by which they might one day be judged?

Roughstuff

Two very good points and now that I think of it i recall seeing the word 'reckless
endangerment' in the text of many newspaper accident reports. Kudos on your ambulance chaser comment also. It's probably a chicken and egg thing. Just when and with who(m) do we start enforcing the tougher reckless standard?

roughstuff

supcom

I suspect that 'reckless' and 'criminally negligent' are somewhat synonymous. It's why when a drunk driver hurts someone he gets charged with more than DUI.

As far as lawsuits go, I expect that in the case above, as well as most incidents where a cyclist is killed by a motorist, a lawsuit gets filed by the victim's family against the driver. You may not read about it in the newspaper because it's not very sensational. I would expect the drivers insurance will settle the suit without the case even going to trial for some figure at or near the liability limit the driver carries. It would do no good to file a suit for many millions of dollars, or some ambulance chasing amount, since the driver is unlikely to have the money and is unlikely to have that much insurance.

Chris L

Actually, in the long term it would. It would set a precedent. If people were afraid of million dollar law suits, they might take the same care to avoid them while driving as they do while working.

supcom

From what I have learned about aviation accident investigations, there are usually multiple factors leading up to an accident. Usually these are human errors or poor judgement which singly are easily corrected. It's when the errors add up that the situation gets out of control. For example, a driver rushing to get to work with not enough sleep the night before and carrying on an argument with his wife on the cell phone is not likely to make the best driving decisions and may have an accident. The accident is preventable by removing some of the distractions, but it's still an accident. The term 'accident' simply indicates that there was not intent to cause an incident. It is certainly applicable to almost all automobile crashes that are not suicide or terrorist related. Note that not all accidents are crashes. If your car catches fire and burns down the house, there is no crash, but it very well is probably an accident.

Another thing. An accident does not absolve a person from legal liability. If the guy in the example above fails to yield and causes damage or injury, he would still be liable for civil damages, even if there are no crime committed other than failure to yield. The liability comes from the negligence of the driver or the mechanical failure of the vehicle that leads to the accident (or crash if you prefer). There seems to be a sense among posters to these 'Cyclist Killed' threads, that the driver gets away scott free because no charges are filed. I guarantee this is not the case. Aside from the emotional trauma and guilt that comes from causing the death of another person, the driver will face one, or more lawsuits from the victim's relatives that, depending on his insurance, may ruin him financially. He may ultimately lose his drivers license and will certainly face very high insurance premiums if he retains his license. Of course, he's not dead, which is an infinitely better situation than the killed cyclist has. But he's not getting off scott free either.

supcom

I can tell you that I am not afraid of a million dollar lawsuit any more than I am afraid of a billion dollar lawsuit. If someone got a judgement like that against me, it would do them little good. Above the limits of any liability insurance I have, there is little anyone could do to collect any significant sum of money from me (or most individuals) simply because I do not have sufficient assets that may siezed to settle a large judgement.

The United States is the most litigious country in the world. Everyone is suing everyone else here. It hasn't made anyone a safer driver yet.

Big sensational lawsuits are for corporations with deep pockets or large liability insurance policies. In Texas, where I live, about 1/3 of drivers don't have any insurance, despite laws to the contrary. If you are involved in an accident with one of these people, you aren't going to collect a penny from them. You better have 'uninsured motorist' coverage in your insurance policy or you're the big loser.

Chris L

That's because nobody has yet been charged in a big civil lawsuit in a driving incident yet. Even if they couldn't collect a heap of money from them, I'd like to see them try to get an insurance policy at any point in the future.

In this country that would be grounds to have your licence revoked if it was ever discovered, and if someone tried to sue, it would be discovered pretty quickly.

madpogue 

Hardly. It's the US Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Not exactly the enemies of the oil industry.

Crazy Cyclist

That's a pickup driver for oyu, everytime I see a pickup, there is always some idiot behind the wheel, is this the only kind of person who drives pickups, that's what it seems like to me.

bac

A pickup driver strikes a cyclist from behind - ending his life. There are no charges filed against the "driver". How the F can that be? If the pickup "driver" struck another auto from behind, he would be charged. Why does it always seem to be different when the vehicle is a bicycle?

I simply don't understand. It's so sad, and there seems to be no stopping this sort of thing from happening over and over again. There is NO negative reinforcement in terms of punishment; therefore, it will happen again, and again. Again, I don't understand.

supcom

With what crime would you expect the driver to be charged (other than a traffic infraction), and why?

Besides, even if charges are to be filed, it might take 6 months to do so. I have seen a couple news reports recently regarding charges filed against a driver for 'failure to remain at the scene'. In both cases the accident took place in November.

Dchiefransom

If he's at fault in a traffic accident that takes another's life, the driver should be charged with vehicular manslaughter. You're correct about it taking time to file charges, but if he hadn't done it with a motor vehicle, but with a firearm, even by accident, he'd have gone directly to jail without passing Go.

supcom

In my state, manslaughter requires the state to prove to a jury that the death was caused by a person acting recklessly. Reckless is legally defined as:

(c) A person acts recklessly, or is reckless, with respect
to circumstances surrounding his conduct or the result of his
conduct when he is aware of but consciously disregards a
substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or
the result will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree
that its disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard
of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all the
circumstances as viewed from the actor's standpoint.

Assuming that this accident was caused by a simple misjudgement of the distance between the truck and the cyclist, then it would difficult to prove a case of manslaughter. This is, according to the laws of my state. The state in which the accident occured may have a different definition that could apply to this case. However, the mere fact that a person dies in an auto accident does not mean that a felony crime has been comitted. Generally this kind of incident becomes a civil matter of liability.

Now if it shown that the driver was drunk, stoned, or was harrassing the cyclist, recklessness (or even murder, may be appropriate.

Chris L

No, recklessness becomes appropriate if he did not do all in his power to avoid the situation -- that is his duty of care as a driver. If it was a simple matter of "not paying attention" then he was reckless. If I stuff up in my job because I'm "not paying attention" I open myself up to the prospect of a civil law suit. Why is this any different?

zonatandem

We have a new Az state law: a car MUST give a bicycie at least 3 ft of room . . . or ticket/fine in case of accident/crash. Now let's see that in other states and ENFORCE it!

supcom

In Texas, reckless is not simply a lack of attention. Reckless would be something like racing on a public street, driving with excessive speed (20 mph over the speed limit), swerving unnecessarily, etc.

There is a lesser class of culpability in Texas called 'Criminally Negligent'. this is defined in the law as:

(d) A person acts with criminal negligence, or is criminally
negligent, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct or
the result of his conduct when he ought to be aware of a substantial
and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result
will occur. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the
failure to perceive it constitutes a gross deviation from the
standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise under all
the circumstances as viewed from the actor's standpoint.

This is more than just misjudging the distance between a car and a bike, or not seeing a bike for being distracted, etc.

If simply not paying enough attention to avoid an accident were a major criminal offense, then almost every automobile accident would result in someone going to prison.

However, even though causing an accident may not be a felony, as you indicated with your job, causing an accident will make a person liable for monetary damages through civil law. At least, that's the way it works in the USA. Obviously, other countries may be significantly different.