rydabent

Smoking gun, or bent up car with a dead person, that is murder in my book. Make an example out of him as a warning to other drivers. A minimum of 25 years at hard labor should be about right.

gcottay

Legal systems vary but here in the United States we still enjoy the presumption of innocence.

turbo1889

It is not the presumption of innocence that is a problem in our legal system when it comes to stuff like this. Rather it is the mythical idea of "it was just an accident" all accidents are caused by varying degrees of negligence. The very idea and the very word "accident" need to be banned and stricken from our court system when it comes to vehicular collisions and replaced by varying degrees of criminal negligence depending on the specifics of each incident.

So long as a human operator controls a dangerous piece of machinery when significant death and injury result the first question is whether it was an act of deliberate malice or an act of criminal negligence, it is either one or the other there is no third option. The next question is the "who" question as to which operator of which machine was the one being either homicidal or negligent and if more then one were being negligent which % of the blame rests on each.

If for example if I were to take one of my hunting rifles out on my property and just start randomly shooting off bullets without a proper back-stop or any consideration as to what is down range of my target and one of those bullets kills someone at a neighboring farm/ranch or in a neighboring residential subdivision that is not "just an accident" that would be criminal negligence of one degree. If I were to fire bullets not randomly but knowingly in the direction of a neighboring farm/ranch where I knew there was an occupied house but without malice or trying to deliberately injure or kill someone that would be an even greater level of criminal negligence. And last of all if I were to deliberately fire a gun at one of my neighbors house with deliberate malice intent that would be in the homicidal category. However, if I do the exact same thing with another dangerous machine namely a large, heavy, fast moving vehicle more often then not it would be seen as "just an accident" rather then the equivalent criminal negligence or homicide. That isn't right and is a warped standard both are dangerous machines and based on effect a very convincing argument can be made that cars are more dangerous then guns because the are responsible for more deaths and injuries then guns are at least in civilian life. I do not believe this is due to cars actually being more dangerous then guns, they are both equally capable as kinetic energy weapons, its just that most gun owners are far more responsible then most car owners and have more respect for the dangerous capability of the machine in question.

KonAaron Snake 

I wonder how many mistakes you've made in your life that could have hurt others - somehow I doubt you'd apply your silliness to yourself.

rydabent

turbo +1

ZmanKC

"Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human, and generally this premeditated state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter)."

turbo1889

Oh, I've made some mistakes in my life, I don't deny that one little bit. There is a huge difference, however, in "could have hurt others" and "did hurt others" and of course unlike others I'm not suggesting that every time there is a smoking gun or a bashed in front of a truck dead center that it is always murder. Negligence carries far less of penalty then deliberate malice and rightfully so.

Point is that people don't take negligence seriously when it comes to certain dangerous machines. When I was in drivers-ed we had a little old grey haired guy for a teacher who drilled into our heads that we were "driving a bullet" and that the vehicle we were operating had just as much or more kinetic energy and lethal potential as a bullet fired from a gun and we had better behave accordingly. He drilled that into our heads ever day and as a result both I and most of the other kids in that class didn't race around town and do all kinds of stupid fancy dangerous driving when we were young punks. There are some people where are in their 40+ years who still drive recklessly like young punks and have a long list of other people they have injured or even killed in automobile "accidents" and they are still on the road and still haven't learned their lesson. You have to turn to show due care when operating a dangerous machine whether it be a gun or a car, because you are dealing with humans their is always going to be some incidents of negligence. Even the very best drivers do sometimes goof up and make a mistake. But there is such a thing as willful criminal negligence and there are a whole lot of drivers getting away scott free for killings (note there is a significant difference in definition between "kill" and "murder" and I do not interchange the two haphazardly) that are the direct result of their "willful criminal negligence".

I can personally honestly say that to my knowledge I have never been willfully criminally negligent in the operation of a vehicle on the public right of way. I do not deny that there have been some incidents were I was negligent, one incident in particulare where I would even say potentially criminally negligent when I was younger where thankfully no one was seriously hurt although there was some substantial property damage as a result that I had to pay for. And, yes, I'm willing to live under the same kind of system I propose. I already live under it for the operation of other kinds of dangerous machines, all it would mean is just including one more where I knew I'd get the full measure of consequences and might not be able to get out of it with just a slap on the wrist. I am more then willing to accept that provided everyone else is under the same standard as well and the potential for legitimate consequences if I make an @$$ out of myself are more then worth it in the additional safety benefits and generally less stressful life I would gain by substantially reducing my having to deal with others who on a regular basis choose to be willfully criminally negligent and even homicidal with their dangerous machines on the same public right of way as me in direct proximity to me where their unchecked selfish actions represent a significant threat to my life and health.

turbo1889

Think about it ~ there was a time in human history (and occasionally still is in localized pockets of time and place) where there was absolute complete freedom without government of any sort to impose any kind of consequences for any free action and the only consequences for actions that existed were natural consequences.

If you didn't like someone else, if you wanted too you could go pick up your stone ax and sneak up behind them and clobber them over the head and walk away scott free afterwards. Your only worry would be if there was someone else who cared about that individual enough to try to get back at you for murdering them which is a natural consequence of sorts. If most other people didn't like the victim either and/or were more afraid of you then mad at you. Especially if the victim had no family or close friends then you could get away completely scott free with full scale deliberate premeditated murder that was a sneak attack where you didn't even have to guts to face your victim head on with a fair fight.

Society has generally evolved in stages from that point because people found it mutually beneficial to their lives to accept imposed consequences that although an inconvenience to themselves if they wished to off someone else were more then worth it for the reduced stress of daily life and having to constantly watch their back and sleep with one eye open since they knew it was less likely someone would try to off them because of the potential imposed consequences of such an act.

At this point we are discussing the tightening of imposed consequences for willful criminal negligence in the operation of a dangerous vehicle machines on the public right of way which offers greater peace of mind and lower stress levels, especially for vulnerable road users, at the cost of greater consequences for yourself if you decide to make an @$$ out of yourself and be the one engaging in willful criminal negligence.

That trade off is more than worth it for me and I believe a lot of others on this forum would agree.

B. Carfree

While I fully agree with you, I'm not sure that there are many folks on this forum or in society in general who also agree. I hope to be proven wrong.

Chris516

ditto!!!

turbo1889

On a side note, as to the evolution of human society I previously outlined. I do personally think there should be some place set aside on this planet for people who really do hate each other and are equally willing to kill each other to go have at each other without involving the rest of us in their personal feuds. I think it would make for a lot less war and suffering on this planet if dueling were still legal but only on an accepted mutual challenge in a place set aside for that specific purpose. Kind of like Bush Senior and Saddam Hussein, we would be a lot better off if those two would have just gone some place away from the rest of us and had it out with each other without involving the rest of us in it.

B. Carfree

The pay per view revenues would make deficits a thing of the past.

Myosmith

Your book does not match the legal definition of murder in any jurisdiction that I know of. Murder is the intentional and unjustified killing of another person. Manslaughter is causing the death of another person through an unreasonable action, careless disregard or negligence but without the intent of causing the person to die. Then of course there are deaths resulting from unforeseeable and unavoidable circumstances aka accidents. Believe it or not, Ripley, there are numerous deaths involving vehicles and even firearms that are ruled accidental and therefore not criminal. If the driver caused the death through a negligent act, the charge is manslaughter, not murder. If the driver was operating his vehicle in a legal and attentive manner and struck the rider through circumstances that were unforeseeable and unavoidable, then the death was accidental. It does make you wonder why he would leave the scene if this was the case but he wouldn't be the first person to panic and do something irrational under stressful circumstances.

I have no more idea of what actually happened in the case cited by the OP than you do, but for it to be murder, the driver would have to have purposely aimed his vehicle at the rider and struck him with the intent of killing him. If the driver was speeding, drunk, texting etc. the charge could be manslaughter. If the rider hit a pothole, lost control and swerved in front of the pickup, the driver is just an idiot to panicked and left the scene of an accident. We simply don't know from the information available.

sudo bike

I agree that how we treat hit and runs is far too lax, and truthfully this is just a symptom of us treating the responsibility of driving as not terribly important... but of all crimes, hit and runs are one of the most easily perpetrated by otherwise upstanding citizens. People do very irrational things in fear, and most hit and runs stem from fear. This doesn't excuse it... but it is hard for me to really rile myself up against good people who made some stupid, stupid decisions out of fear.

Yes, we need to take hit and runs more seriously... but is that really going to accomplish anything when we're sending the message that we don't take driving at all seriously? Let's change how we look at driving in America, let's step up standards we expect drivers to conform to, let's increase training for drivers in emergency situations above the non-existent levels of today, then it becomes a little easier to more strictly enforce hit-and-runs and other crimes of that nature.

We're, as a society, reaping what we sow... while it may make us feel good to take this out on individuals, it probably isn't very conducive to actually stopping the problem. If anything, just ramping up punishment is more likely to get people even more scared in that situation, and even more likely to flee the scene.

rydabent

Presumed innocent and all of that is just fine. But just look at the facts. THERE IS A DEAD CYCLIST!!!! The center of the car is bashed in. There is no way that if the driver was driving responsiblily that he would have hit the cyclist. If he were driving correctly he should have either slowed down, or been driving in the lane to the left of they cyclist. As is sometimes the case there are a few that want to make the driver a "victim". The bottom line here is he is a killer and should be in jail. Life is tough, but it is even worse if you are stupid and irresponsible!!!!

ItsJustMe

There is such a thing as a traffic incident where nobody directly involved is in any way responsible.

One entire class is vehicle issues that would not be caught by maintenance that the average consumer should be expected to perform.

Another is things that are due to negligence of uninvolved parties, such as limbs falling from trees and either directly or indirectly causing injury and damage. In those cases the negligence is on the part of the property owner that did not keep trees trimmed properly.

A subclass of that is what's known as "acts of God" such as lightning strikes either directly hitting vehicles or perhaps hitting a tree and causing a limb to fall, or extreme winds blowing limbs down or blowing objects onto the road. I would have a really hard time finding a property owner guilty of negligence if a high wind picked up a wheelbarrow from his garden and blew it into the road where it lodged in the wheel of a passing car, causing the driver to be unable to avoid hitting a pedestrian.

None of these applies in this particular case, but I don't think it's entirely reasonable to say that every single case of a traffic incident is due to neglect, unless you want to extend the legal definition of neglect into a truly horrific nanny-state situation where people are held legally liable unless they secure every object that they own against the strongest tornado force winds so they can't cause harm.

howsteepisit

Life is tough, but it is even worse if you are stupid and irresponsible!!!!

So when do you check yourself into the jail?

wangta01

Lol. I would have to agree. This guy got off pretty light...

turbo1889

I will certainly acknowledge the "acts of god" category, as actual accidents. And I do agree that sometimes on the luck of the draw very minimal and minor negligence can initiate a chain of events with disastrous consequences. I do believe that punishment should be relative to the degree of negligence and very minor negligence. For example lets say the lug-nuts on a tire were over-tightened by an over-eager amateur at changing tires and this caused the stress on the lug bolts to be high enough to bring them very near the breaking point such that they did break while the car was going down the road and the car loosing the wheel while traveling down the road at speed causing a collision that results in a death ~ it is understandably a minor negligent oversight and its understandable that most people that aren't trained mechanics don't know that it is just as dangerous to over-tighten lug-nuts as to under-tighten them and the court should take that into consideration. On the other hand in the situation where you have a windy narrow two lane road with a posted 55-mph speed limit and an 18-wheel rig doing about 60-mph on that road and a stupid broad who believes that here convenience is worth risking the very lives of others is traveling that road at significantly over the speed limit estimated to be at least 80-mph by a witness that she passed before she passed the 18-wheel rig on the double line on a tight blind left corner where the top of the corner was a crest of a hill with a sharp drop off on the right and a rock face on the left and had a head on collision with the poor guy (me) in the oncoming lane driving a little old Subaru Brat and the only reason he survived is because the vehicle had been custom modified with heavy I-beams bolted and welded to its underside running from the front to the rear with a big winch and snow plow mount on the front massive bumper bolted to those I-beams and a big trailer hitch attached to the rear on those I-beams and the uni-body of that little Sabaru Brat folded like a tin can and wedged him inside with the motor shoved through the fire-wall and up against his legs and the only reason he wasn't squashed is because those big I-beams held and kept the little rig from being squashed even further. It took them nearly a half hour to cut me out. Instead of being charged with willful criminal negligence the dumb broad in question got off with just a few more points on her driving record that made her insurance cost go up a little bit. Nothing else beyond that and she wasn't even really that sorry for what had happened and was more upset about her own rig being totaled out in the accident !!!

Myosmith

I don't agree. To call an act "negligent" it has to fail the reasonable man (person) test. In other words, was the action that of a reasonable person and/or should a reasonable person have been able to foresee the negative outcome of that action. To say that every action that has a negative outcome is negligent, you have to assume that everyone has superhuman ability to accurately assess (or even predict) every nuance, risk and possible outcome, instantaneously, under dynamic circumstances, at all times, and to make the correct choices, without error, for a lifetime.

Merriam-Webster defines negligence as:
There are unfortunate instances when everyone is acting in a reasonable and intelligent manner but bad things happen anyway.

turbo1889

If the bar weren't set so low for the definition of "reasonable person" I might agree with that. Unfortunately, a whole lot of "reasonable people" consider it perfectly reasonable and acceptable to willfully risk the lives, health, and property of others to satisfy their own selfish convenience to the point of willfully and knowingly gamble other peoples lives to cut mere seconds off of their travel time, the best reasonably common example of that I know of on the open roads of the US are those individuals who will cut into the oncoming lane on a blind left hand corner to "cut the corner tight" and save an extra half second or two on the corner. I have had multiple close calls with such individuals both while riding a bike and while driving an automobile and been in five [dripping -with-sarcasm] "accidents" as a direct result of the other individual (4 automobile drivers and 1 bicycle driver) doing this when I was the other guy coming around the corner in that oncoming lane. One of those resulted in a head on collision because I had a rock wall to my right and an 18-wheeler and sheer drop off to my left and thus no-where to go (explained in greater detail in my last post) the other four incidents I was able to "ditch" my vehicle and suffer a single vehicle "accident" rather then take a head on hit. It has gotten to the point where when I'm riding a bike on any blind corner which is a right turn for me I consciously prepare for evasion tactics and stand up on the pedals off the seat and try to see around the corner as far as I can and when driving an automobile I slow way down for blind right corners also looking for a place to "ditch it" if necessary which sometimes really annoys people behind me. Reason is because every blind right corner for me is a blind left corner for oncoming traffic and I've had way too many "accidents" and close calls as a direct result of speed demon willfully criminally negligent vile slime "tight tucking" those corners and switching into the oncoming lane risking a head on collision usually at speeds in significant excess of the posted speed limit. And so far every time to my knowledge they have gotten away with it with no more then a slap on the wrist if that.

I do believe and realize there are incidents that fall into the category of "Acts of God", if lightening strikes a tree next to the road (there are 10,000's of trees along the roads up here) and it falls on the road as a result and collisions result ~ call that an "Act of God" don't call it an "accident". I suppose that would make a third option in the mix technically.

I do believe and realize that sometimes very minor negligence that could not normally be foreseen to cause any problems much less a big one by the luck of the draw can result in very serious consequences up to and including loss of life. I understand those are only minor acts of negligence and such serious consequences could not be reasonably foreseen to have resulted from them and that should certainly be taken into account and for those few incidents we have something known as insurance companies to handle stuff like that and it can certainly be handled in civil court without any need for criminal action. I still, however, would not call them just "accidents".

The vast majority of serious so called "accidents" and close calls, however, I have seen are the direct result of willful criminal gross negligence by individuals who are so selfish that they are willing to gamble the very lives of others to shave mere seconds off of their driving time. These should be treated as the criminal acts they are. Currently more often then not they are treated as "just an accident".

For example:
----- Passing unsafely is not "just an accident".
----- Driving on the wrong side of the road, especially around a blind corner is not "just an accident".
----- Driving drunk, stoned, or otherwise with your mental faculties handicapped to such an extent as to make you unfit to safely operate a dangerous piece of machinery is not "just an accident".
----- Falling asleep at the wheel is not "just an accident".
----- Collisions caused by one or more drivers speeding is not "just an accident".

Yes, depending on the exact situation and circumstances the degree of negligence can vary but it is all negligence. The scale can very from understandable "brain farts" that we all occasionally have but still must take responsibility for our actions up to the outright willful gross criminal type of negligence that falls into the felony criminal category. Right now the scales of justice are off balance if you commit such a crime while using an automobile and you can get away with just a slap on the wrist if that where as if you showed the same level of negligence with some other kind of dangerous machine you would be lucky to get let out on probation after a year or two behind bars. Our jails are over-crowded and we don't need to be locking up people when there is other options which better address the offense committed so I'd be happy if they just completely took away their driving privileges and/or down-graded them so they could only drive vehicles such as those low speed little electric scooters and bicycles which although still potentially dangerous have far less risk to others then a 3,000+lb vehicle that is capable of going 80+mph and these idiots will drive at that speed if given half the chance and will cut their corners tight and cause head on collisions with oncoming traffic much less the other less obvious crazy criminally negligent stuff they will do with absolutely no regard for the lives, health, and property of others.

Myosmith

The legal definition of the "reasonable person" notes that "reasonable" is not synonymous with "average" and that the standard for a "reasonable act" is not the same as "common practice". For example, if 85% of people on a given stretch of road are speeding and one of them strikes and kills a pedestrian, the offending driver can not use the common practice of speeding as justification for his speeding being a reasonable act.

I agree with you that too many incidents of negligence(unreasonable actions with foreseeable consequences) are passed off as accidents. An accident is an unfortunate occurrence that a person could not be reasonably expected to foresee or avoid. It doesn't mean that nobody caused the accident or nobody is responsible. It just means that everyone involved was practicing due diligence for the protection of others and that the negative outcome could not have been predicted.

I'm not saying that "accident" isn't misused to cover a lot of acts of stupidity and/or disregard, but you can't say that everything bad that happens is the result of negligence or an act of God.

Peiper1

+1