Juries acquit if carelessness feels familiar

[randya]

The first article is an opinion piece regarding the acquital of a trucker who plowed into Portland rush hour traffic while distracted and killed two drivers. The second is Michael Bluejay's database of cyclist deaths and serious injuries in Austin, Texas which illustrates that in most cases the police failed to file charges and/or prosecute at-fault motorists. The third is a research paper by Right-of-Way in NYC, in which they reviewed 71 bicycle fatality cases and found that the NYPD wrongly assigned blame for the fatal crashes on bicyclists in the majority of these cases.

From the opinion piece: "It's easy, in other words, for a defense attorney to convince a jury that Michael Meek or Sergey Stakhovich is Everyman, a careless bumbler not unlike each of them. And the law demands gross negligence, not the common variety that Meek showed at 5:08 p.m. as he roared up behind a group of drivers whose mistake was recognizing the rush hour.

"Without drugs or alcohol on board, without road rage or speed racing, jurors will not support a criminal prosecution," said Norm Frink, the county's chief deputy DA."

IMO, the trouble with most bicyclist injury and fatality cases is that the police, the prosecutors, the judges, the juries and the media tend to identify with the motorists involved, and not the cyclists, EVEN IF IT IS CLEAR THAT THE MOTORIST IS AT FAULT, resulting in all sorts of absurd backpedaling (no pun intended) and fabrication of incredible blame-the-victim fantasies.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf?/base/news/107961453798050.xml
http://bicycleaustin.info/justice/details.html#devorah
http://www.rightofway.org/research/cyclists.pdf

[townandcountry]

I remember the accident in Portland. Really horrendous. That is why I go to the side of the road to use my cell phone.

As for the stories from Austin, Texas, very sobering. "The bike made contact with the truck..." Yeah, right. When one of our legislators gets injured or loses a family member to a bicycle/motor vehicle accident, things will change. Until then we just have to keep advocating cyclist's rights and responsibilities. Be careful out there, folks.

[John E]

When one of our legislators gets injured or loses a family member to a bicycle/motor vehicle accident, things will change.

Nope, that apparently does not do the trick, either. A few years ago in Rancho Santa Fe, a graduating high school senior fell asleep at the wheel the morning after his all-night "safe and sober" grad party, killing a jogger, who happened to be a 43-year-old assistant deputy District Attorney and mother of two preteens. He received no punishment whatsoever.

[oscaregg]

Don't you folks get it? This is America, driving is a sacred right ('scuse me while I kiss the porcelain!)

[madpogue]

Don't you folks get it? This is America, driving is a sacred right ('scuse me while I kiss the porcelain!)
You don't realize how right you are, right from the horse's mouth. From this press briefing by Ari Fleischer (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/briefings/20010507.html), then-Press Secretary to President Bush:
Q: ...Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one.

(Okay, "blessed", not "sacred", but you're close in an Onion-esque sort of way...)

[Paige]

If you want to get a motorist uppity just tell them driving is a privilege not a right.