KD5NRH

Pilot licensing.

Seriously; if you put the FAA in charge of licensing drivers to the same standards they use for private pilots, I wouldn't get at least one person a week stopping into the bike shop to ask me to check the air in their car tires. (And 3-4 adults who have no clue how to air up their Schrader-valved 40-PSI-max bike tires.) I would, however, get a buttload more business from people who can't pass the DL test.

And considering the number of high-profile blowout-due-to-improper-inflation wrecks in the news over the last few years, there's no excuse for someone driving a car that cost $25k minumum, burning $2.49/gallon gas to not own and know how to use a $3 tire gauge and a $12 inflator.

KD5NRH

First time suspension, OK; give them a set route to work, making sure it includes a gas station and a grocery store. No driving off that route unless it's a legitimate detour due to road closure.

Second time, they knew the risk, and put themselves in that situation. Let them figure out how to get to town without a car.

Rollfast

Boy, could I run this into P&R with less than a paragraph

Dave Cutter

It's history. The way it's always worked. Most safety items like turn signals, mirrors, seat belts... were just great safety "options" at first. But proved too helpful to be used only as "options".... they became law. Tons of experts have predicted the added safety of self-driving cars... will quickly push them into "required" status.

So... after a few years or MONTHS where most accidents involve motorcycles, bicycles, and/or pedestrians... what would you guess will happen. Who on that list... is most hated by the voting public?

Rollfast

Still politicians.


Am I making my point?

jefnvk

We also need a system that doesn't only concern itself only with if you can follow laws, but also that you can control a vehicle at its limits. I now do vehicle testing, this spring I have to go through a week long plus drivers school where I learn to control at their limits, and then must demonstrate that I can do so in a fast manner under a variety of conditions. Any old idiot can run around in a car safely when someone is sitting over their shoulder with a clipboard, few actually know how to react when they hit that spot of black ice and the car starts to slip.

Just turned 32, so I've had a license half my life. Haven't been retested once, which is quite ridiculous IMO. Not going to even get into the joke of a system that did nothing but made sure I knew shouldn't drink and drive when I got my motorcycle endorsement.

Not in much of the country. Like it or not, we developed a car-centric system of transport.

KD5NRH

Still doesn't work unless the penalties are higher; we just had a DWI-3rd-or-more (felony in Texas) picked up yesterday, except that his rap sheet shows a DWI-3rd-or-more on 2-25-17. Barely over a year, and yet he had his license back in time to do it again.

In my ideal scenario, rather than a license suspension for the previous one, (assuming that was just his third) he'd have gotten a ~10 year sentence, with probation after the first year conditional on not driving for at least five years, but then this one would revoke his probation with no possibility of release until he sits out the remainder of the initial 10 years, followed by whatever he gets for the new DUI, and permanent license revocation.

rachel120

A lot of times suspending a license is an administrative action. You don't pay your speeding ticket, the DMV suspends your license. You ignore their mail and don't show up for an eye exam, the DMV suspends your license.

Yes, this. It should be that when a death occurs, that takes precedence over traffic laws being violated. Not every traffic death is so gregarious as to rise to manslaughter, but it should be investigated as such like other violent deaths are. Clear cut cases of self defense are initially investigated as homicides by the police until it is determined to be self defense. Same with accidental deaths. A motorist hitting a bicycle or a pedestrian should be investigated for vehicular manslaughter until there is proof that the motorist's involvement did not rise to the level of reckless disregard.

Now for a point not addressed by anyone. This guy was driving on a suspended license. That means he held a valid driver's license at some point in time, so he has been tested on his knowledge of driving laws and passed, and he proved he could apply those same laws while in a vehicle. Tougher suspended licensing laws will not fix this particular scenario as one's knowledge of vehicle laws does not magically vanish from one's brain when one's license in no longer valid. Tougher licensing tests will help to avoid this scenario but it will not prevent it entirely. Especially when a person on a suspended license doesn't care about operating a vehicle in a safe manner, which is where vehicular manslaughter laws should come into play due to reckless disregard.