Advocacy & Safety - How to get away with killing a cop.

Make sure s/he's on a bicycle, and make sure you're in a car.

One of the more interesting articles (http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=bicyclist+killed&ie=UTF-8) from my daily search (http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/891610.html).


No charges filed in cyclist's death

Prosecutors said Friday that no criminal charges would be filed against a man whose car struck and killed a bicyclist this past summer near Lawrence.

Instead, they recommended that the Kansas Highway Patrol ticket Kyle Van Meter for several driving violations in the June 28 death of David Dillon, a lieutenant with the sheriff’s office. Among the charges recommended were unsafe passing, following too closely and failure to wear a seat belt.

Dillon died at the scene on Douglas County Road 1400. Van Meter admitted he was distracted by his radio and did not see Dillon until he hit him.

At least the two comments on the article made a note of how utterly absurd this was. But for those of you out there thinking of a guaranteed way to get away with murder, it seems the cheapest (and most effective) way to do it is to put your victim on a bicycle, put yourself in a vehicle, and hit the gas.

We had a case here in DC where a motorist ran over an officer who was directing traffic and killed him. This was at rush hour at a notoriously clogged intersection -- Wisconsin and M. No charges of any kind were filed.

Van Meter admitted he was distracted by his radio and did not see Dillon until he hit him. Utterly absurd! Negligently kill someone and not even parole!!!??? This is surely one way to not make motorists see the danger they pose to other rightful users of the road ways. :(

At least the two comments on the article made a note of how utterly absurd this was.

There's a third comment now, which is not only anti-cyclist, but apparently a threat. I have to stop reading those comment boards.

if a bicyclist passes me on the shoulder at a stop light he should not be surprised when i run him over when the light turns green. NO PASSING ON RIGHT SHEEPLE. After being rear ended a few times while stopped in traffic while on a motorcycle (once by another motorcycle!) I for one will not ever be a "sitting duck" to become smashed between 4000+ lbs of steel and glass. I just pull out of traffic until it resumes moving.

This year on December 31st at midnight, some dolt will fire a firearm into the air, and will be arrested and do time in jail, even if he/she doesn't hit anyone. A deadly tool is a deadly tool.

There's a third comment now, which is not only anti-cyclist, but apparently a threat. I have to stop reading those comment boards.
Just remember that the internet is like an id machine.

The title of this thread is too inflammatory and suggests malice is implied on behalf of the OP.

This forum's purpose should be to promote safety issues to the cycling community and motorist alike, not to suggest an issue of True Crime Stories or FOX News. We are all here to be advocates for our sport and our passion. The sarcasm is making this useless.

Sad but true...it's pretty obvious that if there are no witnesses it's cheaper for a driver to just kick it into reverse and make sure the pedestrian or cyclist they ran over is dead since it's alot cheaper to kill somebody than injure them. Apparently prosecution for vehicular homicide is unpopular because potential jurors realize they're driving vehicles that could kill somebody at any time and they don't want to be convicted of vehicular homicide just for being stupid/negligent while using their deadly weapons.

my god this story is ridiculous. The title is very amusing, but it's sickening how he got away with a slap on the wrist..usually ANY violation against a police officer results in higher penalties..but hey..the driver actually got ticketed, which doesn't even always happen.

lol yeah very recently we had a case where a person in a motor vehicle got confused at an on/off ramp, failed to obey the "DO NOT ENTER" signs and went head on into an off duty peace officer exiting the freeway and killed the peace officer. I'm pretty sure the motorist in that case was convicted of manslaughter, probably because the off duty officer was in a car...

I can't think of any other situation that gives one human being the power to take the life of another for absolutely no reason whatsoever, and face virtually no repercussions. Even military personnel in combat can't just summarily execute someone that poses no threat to them whatsoever without potentially serious repercussions. Our society's dysfunctional addiction to the motorcar is palpable.

I can't think of any other situation that gives one human being the power to take the life of another for absolutely no reason whatsoever, and face virtually no repercussions. Even military personnel in combat can't just summarily execute someone that poses no threat to them whatsoever without potentially serious repercussions. Our society's dysfunctional addiction to the motorcar is palpable.

this is a point I've been making to anyone who'll listen. When did it become ok to kill people simply because they happen to be on a bicycle. In these incidents, if you removed the cyclist from the bike and had them become pedestrians, the motorist would be prosecuted. You see it over and over and over again....kill a cyclist and there are virtually no repercussions for the motorist. It has to be incrediably agregious for any negative results for the motorist.

edited to add....I agree, the title of this thread could have been worded in a less inflamatory way

Prosecutors said Friday that no criminal charges would be filed against a man whose car struck and killed a bicyclist this past summer near Lawrence.

Quite right. Obviously he shouldn't be prosecuted when it was the car that struck the cyclist.

It should read '...a man who struck and killed a cyclist with his car...'

Wow. The cyclist cop must have been pretty unpopular in his department for the reports to be drafted in a way so as to ensure the prosecutor wouldn't authorize a felony case.

I can't think of any other situation that gives one human being the power to take the life of another for absolutely no reason whatsoever, and face virtually no repercussions. Even military personnel in combat can't just summarily execute someone that poses no threat to them whatsoever without potentially serious repercussions. Our society's dysfunctional addiction to the motorcar is palpable.

Well from what I've seen on u tube (http://noolmusic.com/videos/blackwater_mercenaries_slaughtering_unarmed_civilianswow.php), blackwater can shoot at any car that "comes too close". The link is a video of someone shooting out of the back of a moving vehicle, at every car that got within 300 feet.

I am not sure that such behavoir is without repercussions, but often there is no legal action. In someways blackwater is more justified in shooting at cars behind them, than someone who is not prosecuted for injuring a law abiding cyclist.

.usually ANY violation against a police officer results in higher penalties..but hey..the driver actually got ticketed, which doesn't even always happen. The key issue here is that he was not an active (on duty) cop at the time but an active cyclist :(.

To be fair, I'm sure the motorist is extremely embarrassed about the incident.

The key issue here is that he was not an active (on duty) cop at the time but an active cyclist :(.

To be even fairer, it's not easy to even ascertain that the cyclist was a cop or where the cop was or perhaps HE did it.

Please make this clearer next time. It saves us from a few things immediately.

To be fair, I'm sure the motorist is extremely embarrassed about the incident.

I certainly would be if I got ticketed for driving without a seatbelt. He should have been able to get it on after adjusting the radio.

it's not easy to even ascertain that the cyclist was a cop or where the cop was or perhaps HE did it.

Please make this clearer next time. It saves us from a few things immediately. ???


they recommended that the Kansas Highway Patrol ticket Kyle Van Meter for several driving violations in the June 28 death of David Dillon, a lieutenant with the sheriff’s office.

What conditions need to be present in order for vehicular manslaughter charges to be brought against the driver? He did not intend to hit the cyclist. He was not speeding nor was he driving recklessly. He was not drunk. There was no road rage involved. There is no law against fiddling with your radio in the car. As much as I am on the dead man's side I would find it hard to find much fault with the driver. :(

The title of this thread is too inflammatory and suggests malice is implied on behalf of the OP.

This forum's purpose should be to promote safety issues to the cycling community and motorist alike, not to suggest an issue of True Crime Stories or FOX News. We are all here to be advocates for our sport and our passion. The sarcasm is making this useless.

Well said. Thank you.

What conditions need to be present in order for vehicular manslaughter charges to be brought against the driver? He did not intend to hit the cyclist. He was not speeding nor was he driving recklessly. He was not drunk. There was no road rage involved. There is no law against fiddling with your radio in the car. As much as I am on the dead man's side I would find it hard to find much fault with the driver. :(

Yeah, except for the bit where he killed somebody. There may not be laws against fiddling with the radio, but there are laws about driving without due care and attention.

What conditions need to be present in order for vehicular manslaughter charges to be brought against the driver? He did not intend to hit the cyclist. He was not speeding nor was he driving recklessly. He was not drunk. There was no road rage involved. There is no law against fiddling with your radio in the car. As much as I am on the dead man's side I would find it hard to find much fault with the driver. :(

You have got to be joking..... As far as I'm aware there's no law that explicitly prohibits driving while juggling beach balls, but if you run someone down and kill them because you were 'distracted' by trying to keep the colorful balls all up in the air then you're not at fault?

The choice made by the driver to (juggle beach balls/fiddle with radio/talk on cellphone/eat a cheeseburger/whatever) instead of concentrating on safely operating his potentially lethal machine was at the root cause of the cyclist's death.

I'm not kidding. There's no measure of how much he was distracted. Could have been a split second, and yep, that's all it takes, but maybe it was still within what the DA might consider commonplace and normal. We will never know for sure.

What the driver hit was coincidently a guy on a bike. If the driver had hit a box, we would not judge the driver's intent and action any differently.

This is true - we'd have said the driver was an idiot, and if he can't pay enough attention to the road to see a box before he hit it then he shouldn't be on the road. Hitting anything with a car is stupid, and indefensible. If we say it's ok to hit a box, is it ok to hit someone's child? Or a cyclist? Oh, wait, he did. And it isn't ok.

There may not be laws against fiddling with the radio, but there are laws about driving without due care and attention.
Yes, it is "negligent" driving and they do issue citations for it. In this case I can not see how that did not happen at the very least. Tuning the radio is not part of operating (safely) a vehicle and drivers should only do so when it does not interfere with that safe operation. Which he clearly did not. Actually driving is the most important action and too many people talk/text, read, shave, apply makeup and eat while driving.

We had a case here in DC where a motorist ran over an officer who was directing traffic and killed him. This was at rush hour at a notoriously clogged intersection -- Wisconsin and M. No charges of any kind were filed.

Not to threadjack,but in this case the driver did nothing wrong:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/18/AR2005051800066.html

Offcr Pozell accidently stepped in front of the vehicle while he was directing traffic. A tragedy,but not a crime. FYI,he was a volunteer doing that on his own. That intersection is,and always has been,a zoo. For the short time he was there it was actually managable. The square now bears his name.

'apparently stepped into the path of the Honda CR-V'

hmm. was his arm extended with his palm towards the driver, to signal to them to stop? they say that the light was green, but anyone who actually READ their new driver's manual knows that if there is a traffic director, you obey them, not the light. the situation is still to vague to determine what really happened, but the fact that they mentioned that the light was green for the driver leads me to believe that they weren't paying attention to the traffic director..

the fact that they mentioned that the light was green for the driver leads me to believe that they weren't paying attention to the traffic director..

Exactly what I thought when I read the article... if there is someone directing traffic in an intersection you pay attention to them, not the lights. If you're paying attention to them, it's hard to imagine hitting them so hard they bounce off the pavement and die from the head injury....

To a prior poster who didn't see the link to manslaughter... I'm unclear where the confusion lies -- manslaughter is when you cause someone to die. In the case mentioned in the OP, this might be considered involuntary manslaughter, sometimes called criminally negligent homicide in the US.

Honestly, I'm shocked there aren't more deaths and accidents from poor driving, considering how many bad drivers there are out there.... I watch Canada's Worst Driver as a reality-check so that I take nothing for granted when I'm in public, most especially when I'm cycling.

What conditions need to be present in order for vehicular manslaughter charges to be brought against the driver? He did not intend to hit the cyclist. He was not speeding nor was he driving recklessly. He was not drunk. There was no road rage involved. There is no law against fiddling with your radio in the car. As much as I am on the dead man's side I would find it hard to find much fault with the driver. :(
Are you kidding?

He was driving recklessly, he HIT SOMETHING. I am sorry but your comment is so absurdly wrong that it is hard not to scream at you.