4 ms·

You can also kill someone in another car and not be charged and convicted, unless you did it purposefully or were driving with reckless disregard for human life

You can also kill someone in another car and not be charged and convicted, unless you did it purposefully or were driving with reckless disregard for human life. It's not that pedestrians and cyclists are treated as a special case.

TulliusCicero 9y ago
Right, it's that being in a car is treated as a special case where you can kill someone and the legal system mostly doesn't care unless it's blindingly obvious that it was intentional.
- smsm42 9y ago
  It's not a special case - you can't convict somebody of a felony murder if there was no intent to kill and it happened by accident. I.e. if you were standing on a ladder, and it suddenly collapsed and you fell on top of somebody and that person died, it's not a murder. Even if a car is not involved.
- choko 9y ago
  That's also known as "innocent until proven guilty". Should it rather be the driver's fault to prove that it was an accident instead of intentional? How might one go about proving such a thing?
  - lorenzhs 9y ago
    I think the suggestion is rather that it should be a felony to kill someone in an accident, unless that person was acting recklessly (e.g. running a red light).
    - brador 9y ago
      If it's an accident the person is not a danger to society and we gain nothing by locking them away. What else would be a suitable punishment for this freshly minted felon?
      - lorenzhs 9y ago
        I think the argument goes something like this. We fine people who text while driving because it’s a distraction, potentially leading to dangerous situations that might otherwise be avoided. Thus, if you kill someone while texting and driving, you at least share the responsibility because you were distracted by your phone. It’s also about the responsibility to watch where you’re going with your superfast two ton hunk of metal, and to ensure that you’re not endangering others with it. It bothers me that dead cyclists are seen as an inevitability, that “accidents happen”, rather than as the result of irresponsible behaviour.
        Amezarak 9y ago
        > It bothers me that dead cyclists are seen as an inevitability, that “accidents happen”, rather than as the result of irresponsible behaviour. Not all dead cyclists are the result of irresponsible behavior on the part of a driver. Sometimes people die even when everyone does everything right, or at least nothing wrong. And sometimes people die when the cyclist does something irresponsible. A few days ago I was driving down the road through a crosswalk. There were no pedestrians in sight and no visible cross traffic, so I continued through. A cyclist shot out at a high rate of speed (for a cyclist) from behind a building and shot into the crosswalk while I was checking the other side of the road and very, very nearly got hit. (And then had the temerity to scream and cuss at me, but that's adrenaline I guess.) All it would have taken would be more me to have been driving maybe 1mph faster and he would have been toasted, but I did nothing wrong. Even if I had been watching his side of the road (I caught him in my peripheral vision) I couldn't have reacted any faster. In this case the cyclist did do something wrong (in this area he should have been behaving like a car and therefore driving in the road and coming to a complete stop as required there, not assuming the crosswalk granted him invincible right-of-way powers), but there are plenty of cases where nobody did anything irresponsible and an accident happened anyway. Criminalizing accidents sounds to me like a way to just indulge the people who want to get rid of cars altogether.
        lorenzhs 9y ago
        Yes, someone linked a news article here about a tragic accident in Munich. The truck driver was cleared of all charges. Sometimes genuine accidents happen. But that's not what the article or this discussion are about, is it? I don't know about the laws where you live, but in Germany cyclists are not permitted to use crosswalks (or, for that matter, sidewalks). It'd be stupid to assume that a motorist could see them coming, even at normal bike speeds. That's just reckless behaviour. But these are not the cases I'm talking about. The law in places like Germany recognises that they exist and has appropriate provisions for them (see the above-mentioned article). This isn't magic, and it's not criminalising accidents. It's criminalising irresponsible behaviour while operating dangerous machinery when that behaviour has tragic consequences.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  > is treated as a special case where you can kill someone and the legal system mostly doesn't care No, it just happens to be far more common than job-site accidents because nearly the entire population frequently uses road transportation. If you drive a forklift into something and it falls over killing someone it would be treated in about the same way. The legal system would care even less because it didn't happen on a public road. Granted some lawsuits would probably fly after the fact but as far as civil/criminal penalties goes a job-site accident is basically the same as a vehicle accident.
davidw 9y ago
It's easier to kill a cyclist or pedestrian though, without much risk to yourself - maybe a few scratches on your car. "But officer, he swerved into my lane" and you get a slap on the wrist, because the only other witness is dead.

TulliusCicero 9y ago

Right, it's that being in a car is treated as a special case where you can kill someone and the legal system mostly doesn't care unless it's blindingly obvious that it was intentional.

smsm42 9y ago
It's not a special case - you can't convict somebody of a felony murder if there was no intent to kill and it happened by accident. I.e. if you were standing on a ladder, and it suddenly collapsed and you fell on top of somebody and that person died, it's not a murder. Even if a car is not involved.
choko 9y ago
That's also known as "innocent until proven guilty". Should it rather be the driver's fault to prove that it was an accident instead of intentional? How might one go about proving such a thing?
- lorenzhs 9y ago
  I think the suggestion is rather that it should be a felony to kill someone in an accident, unless that person was acting recklessly (e.g. running a red light).
  - brador 9y ago
    If it's an accident the person is not a danger to society and we gain nothing by locking them away. What else would be a suitable punishment for this freshly minted felon?
    - lorenzhs 9y ago
      I think the argument goes something like this. We fine people who text while driving because it’s a distraction, potentially leading to dangerous situations that might otherwise be avoided. Thus, if you kill someone while texting and driving, you at least share the responsibility because you were distracted by your phone. It’s also about the responsibility to watch where you’re going with your superfast two ton hunk of metal, and to ensure that you’re not endangering others with it. It bothers me that dead cyclists are seen as an inevitability, that “accidents happen”, rather than as the result of irresponsible behaviour.
      - Amezarak 9y ago
        > It bothers me that dead cyclists are seen as an inevitability, that “accidents happen”, rather than as the result of irresponsible behaviour. Not all dead cyclists are the result of irresponsible behavior on the part of a driver. Sometimes people die even when everyone does everything right, or at least nothing wrong. And sometimes people die when the cyclist does something irresponsible. A few days ago I was driving down the road through a crosswalk. There were no pedestrians in sight and no visible cross traffic, so I continued through. A cyclist shot out at a high rate of speed (for a cyclist) from behind a building and shot into the crosswalk while I was checking the other side of the road and very, very nearly got hit. (And then had the temerity to scream and cuss at me, but that's adrenaline I guess.) All it would have taken would be more me to have been driving maybe 1mph faster and he would have been toasted, but I did nothing wrong. Even if I had been watching his side of the road (I caught him in my peripheral vision) I couldn't have reacted any faster. In this case the cyclist did do something wrong (in this area he should have been behaving like a car and therefore driving in the road and coming to a complete stop as required there, not assuming the crosswalk granted him invincible right-of-way powers), but there are plenty of cases where nobody did anything irresponsible and an accident happened anyway. Criminalizing accidents sounds to me like a way to just indulge the people who want to get rid of cars altogether.
        lorenzhs 9y ago
        Yes, someone linked a news article here about a tragic accident in Munich. The truck driver was cleared of all charges. Sometimes genuine accidents happen. But that's not what the article or this discussion are about, is it? I don't know about the laws where you live, but in Germany cyclists are not permitted to use crosswalks (or, for that matter, sidewalks). It'd be stupid to assume that a motorist could see them coming, even at normal bike speeds. That's just reckless behaviour. But these are not the cases I'm talking about. The law in places like Germany recognises that they exist and has appropriate provisions for them (see the above-mentioned article). This isn't magic, and it's not criminalising accidents. It's criminalising irresponsible behaviour while operating dangerous machinery when that behaviour has tragic consequences.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
> is treated as a special case where you can kill someone and the legal system mostly doesn't care No, it just happens to be far more common than job-site accidents because nearly the entire population frequently uses road transportation. If you drive a forklift into something and it falls over killing someone it would be treated in about the same way. The legal system would care even less because it didn't happen on a public road. Granted some lawsuits would probably fly after the fact but as far as civil/criminal penalties goes a job-site accident is basically the same as a vehicle accident.

davidw 9y ago

It's easier to kill a cyclist or pedestrian though, without much risk to yourself - maybe a few scratches on your car. "But officer, he swerved into my lane" and you get a slap on the wrist, because the only other witness is dead.