Yes, unless the kid had a habit of throwing eggs at you or other cars.
Yes.
Yes.
It is conceiveable, even with high-quality video and audio data and a plethora of high-reliability witnesses, that identification of serial vandals could be mistaken?
(I’m not going to sully your list by adding: “It is inexcusable to mistakenly apply the death penalty?”, because not everyone would agree that it’s not worth it to “break a few eggs” in the name of the Omelette of Justice(da da DAAAAA). That caveat is the reason I do not condone state-sponsored or freelance blood vengeance.
Because having something smash into your vehicle while you are traveling down a highway could very well cause someone to panic and swerve and cause an accident, maybe not you or me but i know something as small as that would freak out my mom. Because if you don’t stop and do something then nothing will get done and this kids will grow up into adults who excuse this kind of behavior with a “come on, didnt you do anything like that as a kid? i did!”, but mainly because a kid doing this deserves a good beating to teach him not be such a fucking asshole.
Well not exactly, im saying them getting away scot free would be more wrong than them getting beat up or maced or tazered, all of which i would consider adequate in this case.
Anything at all hitting your car while traveling at a high velocity like on a highway will be LOUD and DISTRACTING, the fact that it was simply an egg would not likely be inmediately obvious unless they happened to nail your windshield which just leads to a different kind of trouble. Accidents happen over things as simple as changing radio stations or talking on a cell phone, ANY distraction while you are driving a vehicle is dangerous, specially something as completely unexpected as your car being struck by anything while traveling down a highway not to mention that a windshield wiper is not likely to clear away the mess if it happens to hit your windshield and then you are dealing with low visibility on top of the surprise at having been hit.
But Your Majesty, an egg hitting the windscreen directly in front of the driver need only cause momentary panic or disorientation in order to cause an accident, especially if the vehicle is travelling at speed.
Although I agree that a thrown egg might cause a serious accident, I’m still a little shocked by the above quoted comment, and I don’t agree that bodily harm enacted upon the perpetrator is preferable to their unprosecuted escape. How is it anything but “two wrongs make a right”, when you’re advocating grievous violence as appropriate response to petty violence?
Fine. Show some incidents in which egging has caused serious accidents resulting in injury.
I’m not saying that there isn’t some scenario we can concoct in which an egg could set off some terrible chain of events. Nor am I saying that egging isn’t immature and antisocial behavior. I’m saying egging resulting in serious car accidents is so unlikely that we ought to apply some perspective to the reality of that “threat.”
If there’s a lot of car crashes out there I am not aware of that have been caused by eggings, I’ll gladly admit I’m wrong. But if there’s only one or two – or god forbid zero – incidents in recorded human history of drivers freaking out, driving off the road, and causing serious injury to people as a result of eggings, I think it is somewhat hyberbolic to claim that egging is “dangerous.”
For me, it’s not about the potential for a car accident. It’s the idea that someone with youthful aggression to burn off can take it out on someone who never did anything to him. Forget moving cars: there’s also knocking down mailboxes, throwing eggs at stationary objects/people, harassing people on the subway. And this is somehow okay. Why should Joe Baggadonuts have to submit to being a target for Timmy Ballshaventdropped’s aggression?
It has never been OK. These are acts that can and sometimes are prosecuted. If damages are done, restitution is made. But murdering them. No way. It is not that big a crime. That is why the police are not all that excited by it. He made my car dirty now he must die.
Had the egg thrower been apprehended by the police and forced to do community service and pay restitution, I would have no sympathy with him. That’s not the case here. I have sympathy for him and for his survivors for the simple fact that while what he did was wrong it wasn’t wrong enough to rise to the level of the death penalty. What sympathy I would’ve had for the SUV driver evaporated when he killed someone.
If, if, if. If you can catch him. If you can identify him. If you can get the police to give a hoot. If you can prove that he did it and caused damage. If he’s obligated to pay any kind of penalty. If you think it’s worth your time and effort for something that shouldn’t even happen.
The point is that there’s an active manhunt for the shooter, as there should be, of course. But chasing down an egg-thrower (assuming you don’t have a gun, and don’t intend to hit him with your car either)? You’re on your own.
Indeed. In which case you swear by all that’s holy that you have never ever endangered others on the road by changing a radio station or glancing at scenery or your passenger or taking a bite of food or drinking some of that coffee or glancing at a map or scratching something itchy or telling somebody in the car off or…
huh?
Because if you have then by your measure we need to go hunt you down and beat you senseless since you’re a Dangerous Driver on the order of the Terrifying Egg-Wielding Rampaging Adolescents.
One could, of course, make the point that since random things like bits of gravel can hit the windscreen and since vehicles can be suddenly splashed by other vehicles and since children or animals can run out or since other surprising things happen, a driver ought to be able to cope with sudden and unexpected events. I know that’s one of the things Driver’s Ed taught me.
I must say, as a side note, that it is some honor to have both the Emperor of the World and the Queen of England grace our humble thread with their presence!
I hear what you’re saying, really I do. The prospect that I, John Q. Sixpack, might have to endure the senseless mischief of Billy Peachfuzz and his friend Dennis D. Menace is not a pleasant one. Why don’t you tell us what you suggest, since we all seem to be in agreement (more or less) that a shotgun blast is a bit too strong of a response, and letting them off entirely is too hard to stomach?
I just don’t see a beating as “grievous” violence or potentially dangerous behavior as all that petty. Grievous violence is what happened in this case, a broken nose seems on the other hand like appropiate penalty for completely unprovoked assholish behavior. You fuck with a man for no reason and you get a pounding, i see that as preferable over no punishment at all.
I see people all throughout this thread saying it’s ok. “just kids being kids.” “I used to do it.” “Glad no one shot me when I used to do it.”
Yeah, people think it’s okay. No one in this thread is saying it’s okay to shoot egg throwers. Lots of people are saying it’s okay to throw eggs at cars.
Gonzomax, why should I have to pay to have my car washed at least, and possibly have to pay a $400 deductible to have my insurance company repaint an entire section of my car just so your kid can “make my car dirty.” You keep arguing as if someone is actually saying “your kid must die.” But no one is saying that.
Let’s see. Quite a few posters have expressed their beliefs that inflicting great bodily harm on a vandal is justifiable or appropriate, or that they do not feel sympathy for someone killed in retribution for an egg-throwing incident.
I don’t for a minute believe that any of you, should your child die for tossing eggs at a car, would call for the perpetrator to go free.
You see nothing of the kind. I looked back through the posts to see what I might have missed the first time, and one is saying egging/vandalism is OK, or that kids are just being kids. A couple of us owned up to doing silly things as kids (that potentially could have had damaging consequences, but didn’t). As another poster pointed out, all those going off in a rage about the egg-throwers must have been little angels all during their upbringing.
I’ve had my mailbox bashed off its post by bored suburban teens, and I was pissed off that I had to take the time to fasten the thing on again. I would have been happy to see the offenders spend the night in a lockup or sentenced to a few weeks of community service. But I guess that’s not enough for some of you. If I had spotted the felons, would I have been within my rights to give chase and gun one of them down?
Those who want to break bones or take murderous vengeance over stuff like this had better pray real hard for an understanding jury. The greater likelihood is that you’ll do time. And most of us are not going to shed a tear over it.