Advocacy & Safety - Why Don't These Four States Have Vehicular Homicide Laws?

"In most states in the United States, vehicular homicide is a crime. In general, it involves death that results from the negligent operation of a vehicle, or that results from driving whilst committing an unlawful act that does not amount to a felony. In general, it is a lesser charge than manslaughter. In the Model Penal Code there is no separate category of vehicular homicide, and vehicular homicides that involve negligence are included in the overall category of negligent homicide.[1][2]

All states except Alaska, Montana, Arizona and Oregon have vehicular homicide statues. The laws have the effect of making a vehicle a potentially deadly weapon, to allow for easier conviction and more severe penalties. In states with such statutes, defendants can still be charged with manslaughter or murder in some situations.[3]

The victim may be either a person not in the car with the offender, such as a pedestrian or another motorist, or a passenger in the vehicle with the offender.[4]

There are proposals in other countries to adopt the single nomenclature of "vehicular homicide" as it is used in the United States."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_homicide

Here on Long Island, there is a new law.
"Agravated Vehicular Assault" is now a crime.
This came after a man drove his pickup truck the wrong way on a parkway and crashed head-on into a limosine returning from a wedding. The driver of the limo and a seven year old girl were killed.

Now that would be something we could agree to advocate for. Good luck with changing the OR law.
If an e-mail/letter campaign gets going, let us know.

This is old news now, but you can add Missouri (http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=102804) to the list of states.

This is old news now, but you can add Missouri (http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=102804) to the list of states.
No doubt Missouri does have such a law; this case simply represents a failure to adequately prosecute, which happens routinely in states with such laws on the books.

:mad:

Let me turn the question around: would getting a new offense on the statute change the severity/frequency of prosecutions?

Seems to some extent, deaths on the highway are publicly accepted. A few people die ( regrettably) from tainted spinach, and a giant recall is announced, and the offending spinach is destroyed. A few hundred thousand are killed in car "accidents" and people say "oh well"

Let me turn the question around: would getting a new offense on the statute change the severity/frequency of prosecutions?

+1 - Too many times the politically savvy response to a serious problem is to pass a new law, it keeps the breathers happy, but then ignore it. Rather than fighting to get a special classification for vehicle-related deaths time would be better spent pushing to get DAs in office who treat those types of incidents as serious crimes. Like the poster above me said, car crashes are just treated as a fact of life, and the general public shakes their head and says "What a shame" if there is an innocent involved. THAT is what needs to change, not the letter of the law. Hitting someone with a car, especially if it kills them, is already illegal.