A lot of unspoken assumptions here, at least some of which are incorrect. The fact that a car hits a cyclist does not, in and of itself, make the driver a sociopath. And yes, like it or not, "stuff" does indeed happen. You drive out the shadows into bright sunlight and don't see the cyclist or pedestrian who is in the wrong place and the wrong time. Nothng sociopathic there. And everyone who has ever driven a car has had something happen to distract them for that split-second necessary for disaster to strike. Most of us are fortunate most of the time, and nothing comes of it. But sometimes it leads to a serious or fatal accident. Nothing sociopathic there, either.

And it isn't at all clear that the woman driver in the incident RedRider pointed out did anything "sociopathic." She hit and killed a cyclist - an awful thing by any measure, and one in which she surely is culpable. That does not mean that she did anything so heinous as you want to believe. We weren't there, and there is no reliable evidence to that she was drunk, high, texting, driving particularly aggressively. Indeed, there is nothing to suggest that she was anything worse than inattentive - bad enough, and I am not saying that that makes everything alright: it doesn't, but it does make a difference in assigning the appropriate level of crimnal punishment. (Again, by turning in an out-of-date passport and fleeing to China, she changed the entire picture, and the level of wrongdoing went up by several orders of magnitude. When she did that, she took herself out of any consideration under my position - I hope she like orange jumpsuits. I'll keep going in the analysis assuming for the sake of argument that she had actually done the right thing by facing the music to make my point.)

That does not mean she does not have to take responsibility for her mistake, criminally and civilly. And I stand by my original argument - if you make that kind of situation and make it hanging offense, you are actively encouraging anyone who hits a cyclist to drive away and leave the cyclist to fend for him- or herself. And more cyclists will die in that situation.

Now I agree with all you said about drinking and driving, and I'd extend it to driving while under the influence of any mind-altering substance or while texting. I also agree that the legal system should deal more harshly with road rage/intimidation types of car-bike encounters. Ditto such accidents caused by unsafe speed, unsafe passing, crowding, throwing things, crossing center lines to play "chicken," and other measurable "aggressive" driving habits. Encouraging better driving (and better, more predictable cycling) is a good thing. But I don't think we want to encouraging people on the moral margins to take the "hit and run" way out in the process.