Rollfast

Then what ARE you talking about?

People dying is very emotional but law is rational. There are judicial forces to determine the outcome of charges and their penalties. You can charge whatever you please but without proof that all goes away. You can't be tried twice in a criminal matter for the same offense, don't mistake this with civil charges. People have been highly confused by this since trials such as O.J. Simpson's. And you shouldn't be able to use a civil trial as a catch-all to punish somebody you feel 'got off' in a criminal court.

A square is a rectangle but not all rectangles are squares. All murders cause death but not all deaths are murders.

The answer is thus: If no proof is there that the driver killed the cyclist, pedestrian, anybody with malice and 'aforethought' (planning) then what good does charging them as such do? When they are acquitted who is served?

And it SUCKS when people get killed, whether we know them or not. But let's also remember that soldiers fighting in war die by others' intentions and we rarely call it murder, we say they 'sacrificed their lives for our country/freedom/the lives of others'. I suppose that there isn't a lot of room there to make such a call yet one thing is true when we are anguished we lash out in our disbelief and anguish.

That is why it is not ours to judge. We leave that to others who are trained to make these determinations and sentence or acquit accordingly. This is why we choose our charges to fit the perceived offense(s) accordingly. If we do not then some that incident may not be addressed properly, justice not served.

Deals might have to be made to prosecute as many offenders are possible. The accused do have certain rights.

But emotions are strong and may not reflect the reality of justice.

KraneXL

Was there a point to that?

Rollfast

And walking 12 miles to work could also be seen as detrimental to his stamina at work. I am under the impression that public transportation or pooled transportation wasn't readily available.

The form of remedy he was given is not the issue. The fact that remedy was given to him is the act of caring. The outcome could have been more favorable to you but it is not your choice. The piano player has a flesh wound.

Brian25

If this bothers you now, wait until those autonomous cars start roaming the streets in the next few years. Someone please let me know who will be accountable when one of them takes you out???

SHBR

Accountability.

genec

Well, considering all the cameras those cars will have, I think determining who is accountable should be somewhat easy. But do avoid pushing a bike across the road in ninja mode... just in case AZ PD are involved with the investigation.

Rollfast

That Tesla's Autopilot steered the car into the barrier and I think that ultimately killed the driver. That's not as scary as they can reprogram your car to brake much better (Model 3) yet they didn't do it right the FIRST time? That's how it passed Consumer Reports testing finally. Here we go, Clockwork Orange.

Rollfast

That poor Honda couldn't defend itself...

KD5NRH

In most cases, because they've had a WalMart BSO that was uncomfortable and then fell apart, and think LBSs are unreasonable for wanting more than WalMart prices.

Seriously. I've got some completely rebuilt bikes out front right now that range from $140-350, (The $350 one has almost nothing original left other than the frameset and wheelset. Others vary depending on what components they came with. All are mechanically far better than anything at WM.) and people complain about the "high" prices.

Had a guy come in last week and get $300 worth of repairs to a couple of WalMart bikes, and he even commented on how we charge "too much" for bikes that won't need those repairs in their first year.

Rje58

This! My wife was blindsided from a side road in her car by a motorist who ran a stop sign. Witnesses told the police that the driver had a cell phone up to his ear and never slowed at all for the stop sign. Her car was totaled. She was treated and released the same night, but was sore for weeks and had to take physical therapy as part of her recovery.

All he got was a ticket for running a stop sign, and presumably a higher car insurance bill.

If this had happened on one of our bicycles, or our motorcycle, it would have almost surely been fatal. If not fatal, permanently disabling.

I-Like-To-Bike

What do you think the other driver should have "got"?


BTW, this crash did not involve a bicycle and your wife was not killed or permanently disabled, so what is your point?

OBoile

I agree. People need to take more responsibility and should be punished accordingly when they fail to do so.

HazardBiker

"Accidents don't happen, they are caused." They are caused by a human doing something they shouldn't, or failing to do something they should. Something I learned from my father when he was teaching me to drive. He was a DOT certified safety supervisor for a trucking company and a lifelong trucker.

And shouldn't people be held appropriately accountable for their actions (or in-actions) that cause harm to others in "accidents"?

Brian

Kontact 

That negligence that could easily result in a reckless homicide charge should have more legal penalties than a ticket?

KD5NRH

Intentional or knowing, in Texas. Knowing is still a fairly high bar, well above reckless (manslaughter) or criminally negligent. (creative naming doesn't make it this far - it's just called criminally negligent homicide) It would take something along the lines of "I didn't really want to kill him, just scare him while he was standing on the edge of the cliff" or plowing through a crowd and still somehow convincing judge/jury that you really didn't intend to kill anyone.
And for reference: (emphasis mine)

OTOH, manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide should be a heck of a lot more common responses to traffic fatalities than they are, and not just against cyclists. IMO, it shouldn't be difficult at all to get at least manslaughter on every DUI fatality, The problem lies in defining "reasonably certain" and "standard of care that an ordinary person would exercise." Is a 1% chance "reasonably certain?" 5%? "An ordinary person" speeds 5-10 over on highways, and generally not 15-20 over, but does said "ordinary person" fish for a dropped item in the passenger side floorboard while speeding, or drive with a .09BAC? (Also part of why I favor going back to .10 or even .12 and raising the penalties to severe felony levels, with mandatory permanent license revocation for repeat offenders; a person should generally know at that point that they're beyond "slightly buzzed" and the effects as perceived by the intoxicated person no longer closely mimic mild to moderate fatigue.)

Unfortunately, one could now make a strong case based on easily obtained video evidence that "an ordinary person" texts in traffic, punish passes cyclists and makes no attempt to stop before the stop line even when pedestrians are in the crosswalk, (or at least that these are certainly common enough to not constitute a "gross deviation") effectively exonerating anyone who kills while doing any of these from all forms of criminal homicide.

I-Like-To-Bike

There is the answer to the original OP. There are some emotional agenda driven zealots that no matter the circumstances or actual events, may cry "Murder" or "negligence that could have resulted in a reckless homicide charge!" whenever it suits their fancy, personal or political agenda, or when the alleged perpetrator doesn't fit the Henny Penny's preferred profile.

Kontact 

This response would vaguely make sense if we didn't have firmly rooted concepts like "attempted murder". But the law does have plenty to say about intent, and if it is your intent to drive a car without actually controlling it, there is little difference between that and firing a gun into a crowd without specifically aiming at anyone.

In this particular case, the driver at fault could have been driving a rental car an hour after the crash - there were no repercussions that would limit his future behavior or deinstivise making the same terrible choices.

Rje58

OBoile, Kontact and HazardBiker answered this more eloquently and politely than I would have.

KD5NRH

Causing a death by misuse of a firearm is virtually certain to get you enough jail time to guarantee job loss, and probably the loss of anything else you can't take care of while in jail. (Children, mortgaged or rented property, car, pets, etc.) It happens so rarely (roughly 500 times a year) that it pretty much always makes at least regional news, in spite of the US having an estimated 300 million privately owned firearms. In fact, it's fairly certain that if a gross misuse of a firearm can be pinned on you even without any injury or property damage, you're likely to see some jail time or at least truly painful fines and court costs, as well as at least a decade ban from having a carry permit in many states, or a felony conviction that includes permanent forfeit of the right to bear arms.

To pick a more similar analogy, a private pilot license is much harder to get and much easier to lose than a driver license in any state. FAA investigates any accident, incident or pilot deviation, and isn't reluctant to suspend the license while investigating an alleged serious infraction, or to suspend or revoke it for significant negligence or misconduct, in addition to other penalties. As a result, pilots are almost universally better than the typical driver. I'd daresay even the oft-maligned "idiots who fly VFR into thunderstorms" are actually more skilled at flying than the average American non-commercial driver is at driving.

So yes, if the penalties are perceived as strong enough, and are applied properly, (i.e. without the "Aww, you'd have to walk a mile to work and ten blocks to the store? We'll let you have your license back even though this is your tenth DUI" crap) they do make people a lot more careful about how they do something.

Kontact 

You're making the mistake of attributing low firearms accident rates to fear of prosecution. The reality is that many people have firearms accidents, but prosecution only comes if they hurt someone else. I have a friend who put a hole in his neighbor's apartment - no prosecution after the police investigated. The reason there aren't more gun accidents is that there aren't that many people handling loaded guns around other people at any given time.

Penalties = prevention is one of the biggest misunderstandings that people have about crime and negligence. Negligent people don't consider the consequences because they don't believe they are acting negligently.

KraneXL

Woman arrested after cyclist killed in hit-and-run

In this case the charges appear to be substantial enough. However, it remains to be seen whether the punishment to follow will be equally as severe.

KD5NRH

Not true in many cases; a negligent discharge with no property damage (or at least no damage to anyone else's property) around here will still get you fined for discharging a firearm within city limits, and potentially up to 6 months in jail for reckless endangerment if the prosecutor decides someone else was at significant risk of being hit. (Or up to 20 years if that person is a child under 15.)

Police abuse of their "discretion" doesn't change the way the law is supposed to be handled; I've seen DUIs escorted home without even a warning before. That still should have been handled as a misdemeanor and forwarded for the prosecutor to decide. Most likely it would have been a $250 fine plus $50-150 in court costs, and assuming it's just some drywall damage, the neighbor and/or the building owner could handle the civil side in small claims court if they couldn't work it out with the shooter.

Which is, at least in large part, because the potential consequences (both legal and natural) are seen as appropriately severe. Since you can't get the severity of the natural consequences of careless driving through most people's heads, (How many people think nothing of texting in highway traffic, yet are terrified of getting in a commercial airliner, despite the latter being hundreds of times safer?) stronger legal consequences are needed to fill in the gap.

They don't believe they're acting as negligently as they are. It doesn't take a lot of YouTube dashcam videos to find several examples of people running up on a curb, scraping a guardrail or drifting off into the grass, correcting, going right back to texting, putting on makeup, playing with the GPS or whatever and then having a more serious wreck. They're given an undeniable indication that their behavior is dangerous and that they're not really in control of the car, but the perceived consequences aren't serious enough to deter the behavior. And really, the actual consequences generally aren't that serious; if there's no major injury, their insurance will likely have them a rental car no later than the next day, and the cost of the damages will be spread out over years of increased insurance premiums. Start putting a mandatory minimum 30 day license suspension on an at-fault driver in a collision and they're far more likely to think "oh ____, this message isn't worth having to beg rides for a month again."

Kontact 

I think this may be a cultural thing. The majority of gun owners don't live within the city limits of a municipality like you describe, and simply do not have as many high penalty firearms laws as where you live. A lot of people in the US shoot guns in their yards, for instance. So I think you are taking a more extreme legal example and inappropriately applying it to gun owners everywhere, then presuming causation. I've lived all over the US, and just don't find your views on the subject universally applicable.


As for people who have had accidents caused by negligence - that really isn't the problem. I would bet the majority of people who have had serious accidents because they were texting or not checking their blind spots have never had a previous accident, so there never was a 'wake up call' moment.

Rollfast

Take their money and don't mess it up...they will be back and keep you busy.

KD5NRH

Any time somebody gives me a "whatever it needs" service authorization, the bike leaves here better than new. Not hard to do with the WalMart stuff, and the Trek, Specialized, Giant, Cannondale and LeMond bikes that have been through here are worth the extra effort for the fun test rides.

Got to tune up a handbike last week too. That was an interesting test ride. Girl may not be able to walk, but she's going to have some seriously toned arms if she's riding the hills around here.