That’s one quote, out of context. Perhaps he said all of those other things before a reporter showed up, or perhaps the reporter or editor cut all of those for space considerations.
And fuck, people say stupid things when people close to them die. When I was a college student and notified of my father’s totally unexpected death, one of the first few full sentences I spoke was, “But I have classes tomorrow.” If anyone took that out of context and dared assert that I didn’t love my father enough, I’d be tempted to hit him or her. No one reading just that would know the depth of my grief or for how long I was in serious mourning, just like none of us truly know what that man is living with right now.
Reckless driving - yes. Inattentive driving? Almost certainly no.
Even if talking on a cell phone were prohibited by statute, it wouldn’t be considered malo in se – too many states permit it. It can’t be considered an act evil or wrong in and of itself.
The standard is a review of the common law.
I can’t find a single case in the entire country in which cell phone use has been the underlying act supporting manslaughter charges.
I can only speak from the experience i have with my Nissan Titan and a friend’s Chevy Suburban. But with 8 cylinders that make over 300hp and gearings that create almost 400 ft-lbs of torque, it doesn’t take much to get either vehicle moving from a stand still. I have let my friends drive the Titan and they press the throttle like they do in their cars and our heads slam on the headrests just because they aren’t used to the difference in power.
You’re in for a helluva bubble burst when you find yourself saying or doing something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever while processing immediate grief. I hope no one makes as callous an observation about your behavior as you have of this man’s.
Perhaps, but this fails to take into account a couple of things about the present discussion.
First, if the car belonged to the guy driving it, he should have been aware of its level of power and response, and thus should not be taken by surprise when putting his foot on the accelerator.
Second, and more important, is that those arguing a theory of mere inattention have not been alleging that he accelerated, but that he merely took his foot from the brake accidentally. I’ve driven some powerful cars, including ones with large, high-torque V8 engines, and even those don’t generally dart forward with great acceleration when the foot is merely lifted from the brake.
From the OP’s linked article:
Bolding mine.
If you want an example of someone arguing that merely lifting their foot off the brake might lead to this accident, see Hampshire’s post #26
In this post, he was quoting from a story he saw on his local news about the incident.
I agree that we need to wait until all the evidence is in before (metaphorically) hanging the driver, and it could well be that the pedestrian was partly or even mainly at fault here. But i also think that we need to think closely about how to punish accidents that are a result of mere inattention. if that turns out to be the case here.
On the one hand, throwing a guy in jail for a genuine mistake seems rather counterproductive and unjust; on the other, so many people are fucking awful drivers precisely because they don’t pay sufficient attention to what they’re doing when behind the wheel, and i think we need to show those people that a higher-than-normal level of care is required when navigating 2+ tons of metal.
mhendo you might want to scroll up to post #69 and read the link there. This could explain how and why the car “lurched” when the driver’s foot came off the brake.
The guy is leaning out the window reaching for food. His body is not in the normal driving position. His foot slips off brake. He see the truck start to move in relation to the building (assuming of course he is looking at the drive thru window) and stabs for brake. Due to his body being out of its normal position he stabs gas pedal by mistake. Truck lurches forward, lady dies.
I’m not saying it did, but this could explain it.
I would much rather get pinned head on by a regular car than an SUV. Just from the level and shape of the car’s front, it looks like an SUV would do a lot more harm to the average person.
But Hampshire’s claim was that he merely lifted his foot from the brake, and Hampshire claimed to be citing from an interview with the guy himself. And this article also has the driver claiming:
He never claims pedal misapplication, and the use of the word “rolled” seems distinctly different from a claim that the car “surged” or “jumped” forward.
Also, to go back to my previous post, the question for me is, even if things happened exactly as he said, does that relieve him of all responsibility? Here i return to the notion that we need to be extra careful when behind the wheel of a car, especially when we’re in an area where we know pedestrians are around.
While i haven’t used a drive-through take-away restaurant in years, i use a drive-through bank occasionally, and i’m always conscious of the fact that leaning out to insert the card or push the button shifts my body position. To prevent anything untoward happening, i always put the car in park in such cases, making it easier for me to lean without worrying about my feet on the pedals.
Look, i really feel for the guy, and i have no reason to doubt his claim that it was just an unfortunate accident. But we need to drum into people’s thick skulls that the sort of inattention that might be perfectly acceptable elsewhere can take someone’s life when it occurs behind the wheel of a car. I’m not sure of how to do that, or if punishment is even the best way to do it, but i see so many bad drivers on the road that i remain convinced that something needs to be done.
Yes, people driving a car should be aware at all times that they are in charge of a potentially lethal machine. Tis especially applies around places like fast-food outlets, where you can expect there to be pedestrians wandering around, and not expecting that a car will lurch forward suddenly without the driver looking to see who is there.
And perhaps jail is not the right answer. Perhaps taking their driving license away for many years would be a better penalty.
I tend to agree. I’m on record, in many threads on these Boards, advocating harsher penaties for those who habitually or egregiously demonstrate their inability to be responsible behind the wheel. I particularly support more frequent and longer license suspensions.
But i run into a couple of problems here.
The first is that most Americans seem to think of driving as a right somewhat akin to free speech or owning firearms, and argue against taking someone’s license away for anything except the most horrifiic offenses. The argument that the person needs a car to get to work or visit his sick aunt is seen, by some folks, as more compelling than the need to punish irresponsible behaviour on the road.
Secondly, statistics tend to show that an incredibly high percentage of people whose licenses have been suspended or revoked continue to drive anyway, under the very reasonable asssumption that they are highly unlikely to be caught. I’ve cited statistics on this before, and i’ll see if i can track down my previous posts on the subject.
If someone who has their license suspended is simply going to ignore the suspension and continue to drive, it sort of renders license suspension rather useless as a deterrrent or a punishment. We are then left with large fines and/or incarceration as possibilities for punishment. While these might seem unreasonable for genuine mistakes or accidents, it doesn’t seem like much else is going to deter irresponsible driving. The only other alternative i can see is simply to throw our hands in the air and accept that any moron should be allowed to remain on the road, no mattter how inattentive, irresponsible, or downright dangerous his or her driving habits might be. And that’s a scary thought.
Wouldn’t there a be charge similar to “failure to pay full time and attention,” a moving violation in Virginia?
I’ve seen that charge applied to drivers who had accidents while doing other things.
If one commits a moving violation and kills someone, that’s not approrpiate for a charge of manslaughter? (note: not a conviction thereof)
Don’t the police charge some people who don’t get convicted, or who have their charges reduced in court? Is it really THAT stupid to expect the police toi charge someone for this – stupid enough to justify dismissing those of us who are surprised as idiots?
Sailboat, police officers deal with many, many traffic accidents (in general), including fatal accidents. Given that this was a fatal accident, it is very likely that more than one squad car responded, and that the officers had plenty of time to determine likely causes and hash out proper procedures.
I suspect, based on the above, that the police believed there was absolutely no reason to hold the driver on any type of criminal charge, and if any charge was to be filed at a future date, there was no reason to believe the driver a flight risk. Given that there is an extraordinarily high likelihood that the driver was black and the victim was hispanic, racism is probably not playing a role in the decision. I will trust that police, including the Lieutenant quoted in the article, know their job better than every poster in this thread, and I will not second guess their decision absent other facts.
Simply because someone dies in an accident, even where some negligence is likely to have occurred, does not mean someone needs to be hauled away in handcuffs.
This story always makes me think about how much responsibility we all have when we drive and I doubt there is a one of us who gives it 100% concentration all the time. How many of us can honsetly claim we have never tried to change lanes into another car that we didn’t see? Briefly not put the car in park? Fiddled around with the radio only to look up and notice we needed to slam on the brakes? And these are the things we do, what baout the other drivers pedestrians? We are so used to doing it (driving) that we fall into bad habits and our attention is not always as it should be. I feel bad for the woman, but also for the driver. Ther but for the grace of God go I, right? In some ways I am more amazed that htings like this don’t happen all the time. I know how horrible I would feel if I wa sin the driver’s shoes. I don’t even know if I would be able to drive again.
Of course police charge people that don’t get convicted, and of course police file charges that are reduced in court. But that does not give rise to the inference that police should charge a crime for which there is no evidence. When police charge people that don’t get convicted, presumably it’s because the evidence they relied upon was insufficiently persuasive, When police file charges that are reduced in court, presumably it’s the result of a negotiation in which the prosecutor accepts the certainty of conviction for a lesser charge in lieu of the chance of acquittal on the original charge. Or it may be the result of compromise or leniency on the part of the jury. Many reasons may contribute to those outcomes; none involve the police charging a crime for which they cannot point to initial evidence.
I’m not dismissing anyone as an idiot. But if you’re going to demand to know, in outraged tones, if manslaughter is still a crime, on a board whose motto is fighting ignorance, then I believe it’s appropriate to point out that the evidence adduced in the report of the incident does not actually support a charge of manslaughter.
Just yesterday, I was pulling out of a fast food drive thru and not paying close enough attention and had to slam on my brakes as a pedestrian walked in front of my car. It happens. Would I have been in the wrong if I had hit this woman? God, yes. I might have killed her. I would have been described as a distracted SUV driver, too, as I drive a Honda CRV.