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Maybe I’m just feeling emotional today but I found the examples so distressing I couldn’t continue the article. How could a whole family just be killed off: mot

Maybe I’m just feeling emotional today but I found the examples so distressing I couldn’t continue the article. How could a whole family just be killed off: mother, father, and their children, and the driver responsible faces NO consequences? Even if consequences don’t bring people back from the dead, they are still useful for signaling to society that we recognize the severity of what happened. It’s depressing to think about their home where they spent their days together now just sitting silent and empty, one day they all left together and would never return again, everything exactly as they left it, soon to be emptied out and sold off to the next owners who will take over as if nothing happened. And apparently as far as society is concerned nothing did happen. Our lives really don’t mean shit to anyone but ourselves. Why are we like this?

SoftTalker 3y ago
The driver, if not a complete sociopath, will be haunted by it for the rest of his/her life. Likely also bankrupt from a civil wrongful death lawsuit by the next of kin. I'm not sure what a jail sentence would do on top of that.
- estebank 3y ago
  Immediate removal of their driver's license is the bare minimum, and we don't even do that.
zamfi 3y ago
As the article mentions, the driver will have to deal with the knowledge that they killed an entire family by accident, which can’t be easy. Of course, it is nothing compared to what the killed family’s fiends and loved ones feel, but “NO consequences” isn’t exactly fair. Which is also part of the point of the article: the problem is that it’s missing the forest for the trees to treat just the driver as responsible — one could argue the driver was also failed by the entire system described here, the system that privileges vehicles and their occupants over pedestrians, that treats death as an unavoidable, and therefore acceptable, consequence of vehicle use, which itself is treated as an unalienable right. Where are the: - fitness-to-drive tests every few years? - geofenced enforced speed limits? - protected sidewalks with higher boundaries? - physical smartphone restrictions on use while driving? (Paired with your car, moving > 5 mph, single occupancy? Car mode.) - pedestrian-focused safety mechanisms? (E.g., external airbags?) - traffic calming measures on major roadways shared with pedestrians? - standards around signaling at crosswalks on major roadways? - heavily subsidized transit that runs frequently enough that it’s preferable to driving? Every regulation has a cost, of course, and many of these are horribly privacy-violating if naively implemented. But let’s be 100% clear what we are privileging when we make these decisions!
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  It would be less frustrating if our society was willing to take this systemic view of low level crime as well. But there are people in jail and even prison for shoplifting, or stealing a car, or such unforgivable violence as a punch that left someone bruised. Because yes, we demand a system that creates these kinds of crime, but no, people aren’t willing to think that way about anything except killing people with your car.
  - zamfi 3y ago
    I don't disagree with you -- I'd only add that I think a major factor here is premeditation. The law already treats harms from negligence or even from "heat of the moment" actions differently than harms from premeditated action. Few of the vehicular deaths here are the result of a person making a particular decision to kill someone -- even if that is a statistically likelier outcome of distracted driving. That stands in contrast with shoplifting and vehicle theft, which are almost always planned actions, or at least actions undertaken with the knowledge that they are crimes. Whether this is the right line to draw or not is, of course, a major question.
- yowzadave 3y ago
  > the driver will have to deal with the knowledge that they killed an entire family by accident Do you think the term "accident" accurately describes what happened? In that particular case, the driver of an SUV was speeding on the wrong side of the road, ran onto the sidewalk, and struck the family and the neighboring library.
  - zamfi 3y ago
    In the sense that the outcome was not maliciously intentional, yes. Doesn’t mean they bear no responsibility, of course, or that their egregious actions didn’t cause it—just means they didn’t set out to do it.
- deadbabe 3y ago
  Relying on the driver to have some kind of moral anguish the rest of his life as punishment is shaky at best. The driver might not even give a fuck. He might rationalize he wasn’t a fault. What about the anguish it would cause a parent to know their child and their whole family were killed off and the driver gets to pretty much live his life as normal? Would you just accept that?
talldatethrow 3y ago
I drive about 120 miles a day, and also like weekend road trips. I see so many accidents and fatal ones every now and then and it really weirds me out how people's lives are totally boring and average just driving down the freeway, and then just dead. ~100 a day in America on average. Another depressing metric is that an Americans lifetime odds of dying in a car are about 1 in 100.
_heimdall 3y ago
> Even if consequences don’t bring people back from the dead, they are still useful for signaling to society that we recognize the severity of what happened. Punishment shouldn't be used as a signal to the rest of society to show that an event was serious, there are ways to do that without ruining (more) lives. I honestly can't think of a good reason to punish anyone in the US legal system as it has nothing to do with recovery or change for the individual. Laws and punishment should reflect the will and concerns of society though, not the other way around.
et-al 3y ago
> driver responsible faces NO consequences? Because the court just views as driving "accidents", mere oopsies. There was also this driver, Raja Whitfield of SFSU, who hit and killed a man crossing the street at Geary and Gough. Raja was sentenced to pay only $58k in restitution. That's the price we value life here. https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/raja-whitfield-thrill-ride-fatal-crash-19418609.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/raja-whitfield-thr... (Obligatory: https://archive.is/EXCMq https://archive.is/EXCMq) https://sf.streetsblog.org/2020/08/14/commentary-a-face-of-traffic-violence https://sf.streetsblog.org/2020/08/14/commentary-a-face-of-t... This video wasn't from the day of the accident, but you can see what sort of maniacal driver Raja Whitfield is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED4gStKAa6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED4gStKAa6A If someone hits a pedestrian or cyclist with their car, their license should be revoked for at least a decade, and they should be forced to ride a bike during that time.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

SoftTalker 3y ago

The driver, if not a complete sociopath, will be haunted by it for the rest of his/her life. Likely also bankrupt from a civil wrongful death lawsuit by the next of kin. I'm not sure what a jail sentence would do on top of that.

estebank 3y ago
Immediate removal of their driver's license is the bare minimum, and we don't even do that.

zamfi 3y ago

As the article mentions, the driver will have to deal with the knowledge that they killed an entire family by accident, which can’t be easy. Of course, it is nothing compared to what the killed family’s fiends and loved ones feel, but “NO consequences” isn’t exactly fair. Which is also part of the point of the article: the problem is that it’s missing the forest for the trees to treat just the driver as responsible — one could argue the driver was also failed by the entire system described here, the system that privileges vehicles and their occupants over pedestrians, that treats death as an unavoidable, and therefore acceptable, consequence of vehicle use, which itself is treated as an unalienable right. Where are the: - fitness-to-drive tests every few years? - geofenced enforced speed limits? - protected sidewalks with higher boundaries? - physical smartphone restrictions on use while driving? (Paired with your car, moving > 5 mph, single occupancy? Car mode.) - pedestrian-focused safety mechanisms? (E.g., external airbags?) - traffic calming measures on major roadways shared with pedestrians? - standards around signaling at crosswalks on major roadways? - heavily subsidized transit that runs frequently enough that it’s preferable to driving? Every regulation has a cost, of course, and many of these are horribly privacy-violating if naively implemented. But let’s be 100% clear what we are privileging when we make these decisions!

lazyasciiart 3y ago
It would be less frustrating if our society was willing to take this systemic view of low level crime as well. But there are people in jail and even prison for shoplifting, or stealing a car, or such unforgivable violence as a punch that left someone bruised. Because yes, we demand a system that creates these kinds of crime, but no, people aren’t willing to think that way about anything except killing people with your car.
- zamfi 3y ago
  I don't disagree with you -- I'd only add that I think a major factor here is premeditation. The law already treats harms from negligence or even from "heat of the moment" actions differently than harms from premeditated action. Few of the vehicular deaths here are the result of a person making a particular decision to kill someone -- even if that is a statistically likelier outcome of distracted driving. That stands in contrast with shoplifting and vehicle theft, which are almost always planned actions, or at least actions undertaken with the knowledge that they are crimes. Whether this is the right line to draw or not is, of course, a major question.
yowzadave 3y ago
> the driver will have to deal with the knowledge that they killed an entire family by accident Do you think the term "accident" accurately describes what happened? In that particular case, the driver of an SUV was speeding on the wrong side of the road, ran onto the sidewalk, and struck the family and the neighboring library.
- zamfi 3y ago
  In the sense that the outcome was not maliciously intentional, yes. Doesn’t mean they bear no responsibility, of course, or that their egregious actions didn’t cause it—just means they didn’t set out to do it.
deadbabe 3y ago
Relying on the driver to have some kind of moral anguish the rest of his life as punishment is shaky at best. The driver might not even give a fuck. He might rationalize he wasn’t a fault. What about the anguish it would cause a parent to know their child and their whole family were killed off and the driver gets to pretty much live his life as normal? Would you just accept that?

talldatethrow 3y ago

I drive about 120 miles a day, and also like weekend road trips. I see so many accidents and fatal ones every now and then and it really weirds me out how people's lives are totally boring and average just driving down the freeway, and then just dead. ~100 a day in America on average. Another depressing metric is that an Americans lifetime odds of dying in a car are about 1 in 100.

_heimdall 3y ago

> Even if consequences don’t bring people back from the dead, they are still useful for signaling to society that we recognize the severity of what happened. Punishment shouldn't be used as a signal to the rest of society to show that an event was serious, there are ways to do that without ruining (more) lives. I honestly can't think of a good reason to punish anyone in the US legal system as it has nothing to do with recovery or change for the individual. Laws and punishment should reflect the will and concerns of society though, not the other way around.

et-al 3y ago

> driver responsible faces NO consequences? Because the court just views as driving "accidents", mere oopsies. There was also this driver, Raja Whitfield of SFSU, who hit and killed a man crossing the street at Geary and Gough. Raja was sentenced to pay only $58k in restitution. That's the price we value life here. https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/raja-whitfield-thrill-ride-fatal-crash-19418609.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/raja-whitfield-thr... (Obligatory: https://archive.is/EXCMq https://archive.is/EXCMq) https://sf.streetsblog.org/2020/08/14/commentary-a-face-of-traffic-violence https://sf.streetsblog.org/2020/08/14/commentary-a-face-of-t... This video wasn't from the day of the accident, but you can see what sort of maniacal driver Raja Whitfield is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED4gStKAa6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED4gStKAa6A If someone hits a pedestrian or cyclist with their car, their license should be revoked for at least a decade, and they should be forced to ride a bike during that time.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]