Cyclist killed

[Montcalm]

24 hours later it is on an english news site

[The Cleric]

Manslaughter (or any other form of killing) should get life in jail, NO CHANCE of parole. You spend the rest of your life behind bars. Period.

[Slartibartfast]

When I drove my bike around, I remember having to dodge all those cars all the time. Of course this isn't some kind of 'burbs, it's a really car-overcrowded megalopolis.

[Solauren]

This is why that I feel that there should be no flexibility on minimum sentencing.

i.e Velichular manslaughter
Min 10 years.

And the judge would not be able to go 'okay, could have been me...", its 10 years min, PERIOD.

[Sriad]

This is why that I feel that there should be no flexibility on minimum sentencing.

i.e Velichular manslaughter
Min 10 years.

And the judge would not be able to go 'okay, could have been me...", its 10 years min, PERIOD.

Of course, if some suicidal pedestrian steps in front of your truck while you're driving safely but you can't prove anything, you're fucked nine ways from Sunday.

[Montcalm]

This is why that I feel that there should be no flexibility on minimum sentencing.

i.e Velichular manslaughter
Min 10 years.

And the judge would not be able to go 'okay, could have been me...", its 10 years min, PERIOD.

Of course, if some suicidal pedestrian steps in front of your truck while you're driving safely but you can't prove anything, you're fucked nine ways from Sunday.

If you stop you won`t be accused but if you run away you could be considered guilty.

[Sriad]

words

...
PUPPY!!!

[Montcalm]

words

...
PUPPY!!!

What the

[Sriad]

Your avatar is adorable.

And wouldn't a "mandatory minimum" on vehicular manslaughter mean that it didn't matter whether or not you left the scene? IE since the person died as a reasult of being hit by your vehicle you're up the creek.

[Montcalm]

There some case where a pedestrian appeared from nowhere in front of a car,so these cases are not the drivers fault plus they stayed on the site of the accident.

Thanks for the compliment on my avatar.

[CmdrSweevo]

This is why I never bike on the road. It is also why I tell my kids to stay off the street and ride on the sidewalk. Yeah, I know, bikes are supposed to stay off the sidewalk. Well, blow me. Nobody's going to get killed by a collision with a 7 year old kid's bike, but lives can and will be lost by forcing cyclists onto the road.

You can't bike on sidewalks??

I never ehard of that...so far as I know, people around here can (or at the least if they can't, people disregard it en masse).

IIRC it's £100 fine and confiscation of the bike over here. And local police are pretty hot on it, too - it all adds to the "cleared up crime" statistics.

My one dread of cycling round here is the mini-roundabout. Priority from the right means nothing if you're on two wheels, apparently.

[Shaka[Zulu]]

well, having read the articles linked to, I can only say that there are circumstances that potentially mitigate the issue concerning sentencing.

In the first article where the girl drove the family buick over the 2 kids:

1 -- did she see the kids? at all? if not, why didnt she?

2 -- do you have any idea what make/model/year of buick she was driving? some of them get damn heavy (easily more than 2 tons for older models), and are built so solidly that impacting 2 kids like that, whose combined body weight is probably less than 100lb, wouldnt cause any more notice to the driver than a small pothole at slow speeds -- given that the driver didnt see the kids in the first place. In fact, if the windows on the car were closed, she likely wouldnt have heard anything either.

I frankly think that the sentence was lighter than it could have been, but still within an appropriate range for this case, as I dont beleive she would have run had she known she hit the kids -- she DID plead guilty, which to my mind puts the idea that she refuses to take responsibility in the garbage can where it belongs.

now to the second case with the truck:

Big White Box Truck = bigger and much heavier than the buick above, with blind spots in which said buick could easily cloak itself (or get cloaked by), much less a cyclist. witnesses say he definitely saw the cyclist, but nobody can say if he saw his truck HIT him, and then run over him. Once again we have a case of a vehicle being so big and heavy that the events described would *feel* to the driver as no more than a pothole, given that the driver didnt SEE the impact.

yes the trucker was driving aggressively -- perhaps even dangerously -- but if he turns himself in, I dont think he should get 10 years to life either. if he doesnt though, and gets caught instead...

all this however indicates to me that drivers arent properly instructed in the operation of vehicles -- instruction similar to that for a nighttime VFR PPL (with currency checks for renewal) should be mandatory for everyone who whishes to get/keep a drivers liscense, after all the principal difference is that drivers only have to worry about 2 dimensions instead of 3. Ive been driving using many of the same techniques as pilots -- scanning both instruments (to keeps tabs on vehicle health) and all available views (for potential hazards and navigational planning), as well as keeping my mind as much as 2 minutes ahead of my vehicle -- for the last 7 years, and have only been in 4 minor accidents, 2 of which occured in parking lots, where a car literally materialized behind me while backing out of a spot (in one case the other car was zipping thru the lot, and in the other the car was literally too small for me to see, being stopped right behind the van I was driving -- it was shorter in length than the van was wide, and shorter in height than my rear windows lowest edge... like a yugo) -- as I was the one backing up, the rules here in florida automatically consider me to be the one at fault regardless of any other considerations. the other 2 accidents were me getting rearended -- the other drivers fault in both cases.

[Montcalm]

UPDATE:Police think they found the right truck