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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 o

by 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.
  - uoaei 9y ago
    How about this: we treat owning and driving a car as the privilege it is? Whenever you start the engine, you assume full responsibility of the vehicle's behavior. If that behavior results in death or injury, your vehicle is responsible for it, and by extension, you. This would at the very least make many very cautious behind the wheel.
    - Amezarak 9y ago
      So if someone deliberately commits suicide by car, that's legally on the driver?

by 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.
- uoaei 9y ago
  How about this: we treat owning and driving a car as the privilege it is? Whenever you start the engine, you assume full responsibility of the vehicle's behavior. If that behavior results in death or injury, your vehicle is responsible for it, and by extension, you. This would at the very least make many very cautious behind the wheel.
  - Amezarak 9y ago
    So if someone deliberately commits suicide by car, that's legally on the driver?