I'd want to know more details. What's the current law on hitting a car and resulting in a fatality?
I don't think we want to make the punishment worse for killing a cyclist than killing a motorist. In fact, I'll bet the same punishments do apply. Its a question of enforcement. Too many cases are thrown out for stupid reasons, like "I didn't see him!' (Well, duhhhhh).
Also, manditory minimums are a bad thing. There can always be extenuating circumstances. Look how well they've worked in our criminal justice system.
Also, whats the ruling on true "accedents" where no blame can be assigned, or in cases where a sizable blame rests on both parties (Sidewalk biking, wrong way biking, night sans light, running lights, etc)?
This is how bad laws get passed, with the best intentions and no thoughts to how they actually will work. Everyone loses, joe motorist goes to jail for 10 years and everyone else wants bikes banned from the street to protect themselves. Only the lawyers win.
Hence why I'm going to law school
Anyhow, we lovge to punish, punish, punish, punish, which doesn't really do much. What we need is active education. A punitive punishment like this isn't going to work because of the "it'll never happen to me mentaility."