Cyclist0108

Article in today's Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...cycling-deaths

FBOATSB

Same with pedestrians. Just say the magic words "I didn't see him". That has been my perception for decades. At least they now have the tech available to determine if you were texting at the time of impact, if they choose to use it.

MoAlpha

Murder, at least as I understand it, implies an intent to kill or, at least, killing in the process of causing intentional grievous bodily harm, so it's a very high bar and out of reach for most road incidents.

Beyond that, juries identify with drivers over cyclists because they're what? Drivers. They see some poor, remorseful, defendant with a nice family, whose life is about to be ruined and think: there but for a moment's inattention, a drink or two, or some pardonable margin over the posted speed limit, go I and what was that weirdo doing out on the roads on a bicycle, anyway? Studies on race show us that biases operate potently at the subconscious level even in "good" people. Prosecutors, I assume, understand this and will under-charge for that reason. I'm no lawyer, but I bet defense counsel would use any available peremptory challenges to keep a cyclist off such a jury.

Then there's the civil suit, which often follows. The system may see a benefit in keeping an employed defendant out of prison so that there's a salary to garnishee and to keep the family off the dole.

Aubergine 

salcedo

That sounds like first degree murder. There are different degrees of murder. For second degree murder, it suffices that you intended to engage in some behavior knowing that it increased the risk of someone dying. That is why DUI drivers can be charged with murder. Then you have voluntary manslaughter for which there is no previous intent. And, finally, involuntary manslaughter.

Don't take my word for it. I am not a lawyer and my explanation is probably not great. See here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder...s_law)#Degrees

I think that many drivers could potentially be charged with Involuntary Manslaughter at least.

MoAlpha

Thanks. Maybe a lawyer will straighten us out.

salcedo

And with other cars too. I think the number of car-related deaths is around 3000 per day worldwide. That is about two per minute.

Aubergine 

squirtdad

I think that in general negligence in driving is punished far less than it should be whether the collision was car to car, car to bike, car to pedestrian, bike to pedestrian

I think calling it murder frames the discussion in a bad way. It is like calling the cyclist who runs a red and gets killed a suicide

raria

Not talking about the laws but their interpretation and use.

MoAlpha

So, the entire discussion of murder with respect to anything short of the intentional killing of a cyclist by a motorist is legally pointless?

mothermucca

noglider 

Not at all. It's murder if it was intentional. See the wikipedia article cited above. It explains the differences.

The headline is sensational but the article is good. The headline implies that we need to call it murder, but the article doesn't. Prosecution for manslaughter and murder are both lacking but improving.

Trevtassie

I've always said if you want to murder someone, run them over with a car. We had a case here in Australia where a couple of guys in a car were chasing cyclists around trying to run them over whilst yelling out the window "I'm gonna kill you you c...." eventually they did actually run over and kill someone. on a bike. They didn't get charged with murder or manslaughter. But we did have this case: The anti-cycling Facebook post that ended up as evidence in court where someone did. Hoisted on his own petard. I think if I was a prosecutor or a lawyer for a victim or their family I'd go trawling the offenders social media history straight away!
If I had the skills and the time I'd set up a bot to trawl social media and newspaper comments to collect anti cyclist sentiment with names and set up a data base so lawyers could just search it.... people are quite willing to put up death threats to cyclists.

CliffordK

Somehow we are in a culture where driving is seen as a necessity.

A year or two ago, there was a go-fund-me page for a person who was walking to work. Got hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, as well as a new car... just so he wouldn't have to continue to exercise.

rydabent

Anyone that uses the excuse "I didnt see him" should be charged with negligence and man slaughter at the very least.

I still say if you are so deranged you want someone dead, buy them a bike and then run over them. Most of the time you will just get your hands slapped.

Kontact 

We get upset about this because we're cyclists, but you are more likely to be killed by a police officer than get killed on your bike.

If you really want to see more people charged with murder, consider the quarter million people who die from medical malpractice each year. Cycling deaths are 800 in the US per year.

OBoile

By your own link, what you said was wrong. 2nd degree murder requires an intent to kill. It also says DUI is generally involuntary manslaughter.
The only way you can really charge a driver with murder is if they intentionally hit a cyclist. You have to be able prove they were intending to kill them. Even something like a reckless close pass that ends up causing the cyclist to be hit may not meet that standard (although it would likely be involuntary manslaughter or something equivalent).

jefnvk

Very simple: that is what the law dictates, and IMO for good reason. In Michigan, as long as you aren't impaired or acting in an extremely reckless manner or leave the scene, the penalty for vehicular manslaughter (regardless of the victim, be it a cyclist, pedestrian or other motorist) is one year. Impairment brings that up to a max of 15-20years, depending on the exact level of intoxication. Hit and run mirrors the lower level of DUI punishment, 15 years. As anyone that has been following this forum knows, it can also rise to second degree murder, if the actions that lead to death are particularly egregious, and you feel you can convince a jury. By and large, though, fatal accidents don't.

Intent is very much at the core of the legal system. There is very much a difference between punishments in willfully killing someone, and an action that would normally be benign but in that one instance turned out horribly. We don't need to be tossing more people in prison out of vengeance, we can find much better ways of punishing them that allows them to continue to be productive members of society. If we want to toss people in prison for life, you may as well just advocate for the death penalty while you are at it. Beyond that, I'm not really convinced there is a big difference in one year versus twenty years when it comes to deterring what is generally a spur of the moment action.

noglider 

I realize that cycling is a lot safer than people think and a lot safer than many other common activities. That's not the important thing here (to me). What's important is that WHEN a motorist kills a cyclist, there is insufficient justice. There is an insufficient incentive for people to drive cautiously. That is a real problem that calls for remedies.

salcedo

I think there are subtle differences not explained in detail in the article.

Charles Pickett Jr. was found guilty of 5 charges of second degree murder.

Kontact 

Since draconian sentences have never solved any other social issue, what makes you think it will solve this one? Did we win the war on drugs while I was sleeping?


Or does this have nothing to do with increasing cyclist safety and is just about getting vengeance on 1 in 500,000 drivers that kill a cyclist, even though a large number of those still didn't do anything wrong?

Driver's AND cyclists could both do better jobs of being safe on the road, but at some point cyclists are going to have to acknowledge that a certain number of accidents are inevitable if we want to ride next to 2+ ton high speed vehicles. No one is ever willing to state a reasonable death rate for our dangerous sport, and the anger makes it sound like we are the victims of a pernicious pogrom. The reality is that we choose to ride around people we know lose control of their vehicles occasionally, and we ride anyway. If 800 deaths per year in a country of 320 million is too many, what's a reasonable number?

salcedo

I can't give you an exact number, but there is definitely room for improvement.

I agree with you that not all road related deaths can be avoided. But I think many of them can. I am a big fan of the Vision Zero Project. Even if their ultimate goal is unrealistic, I think they have made remarkable progress in some parts of the world (sadly, not were I live).

As a minor point, you want to talk about population, you should also take into account the proportion of trips that are done via bicycle. The US has a large population but not so many cyclists. If you look at number of deaths per capita, the US looks much safer than the NL. But I bet that if you look at number of deaths per mile traveled on a bike, you would get the opposite result by a large margin.

noglider 

The number is that which is caused after all participants take reasonable precautions. Some people don't take reasonable precautions, and I find them at fault for that, and that includes cyclists and motor drivers.

Kontact 

What's a "reasonable precaution"? Someone could drive for 40 years and never have an accident, then one day they hit a cyclist and it is evidence that they always drove dangerously?


Convicting more drivers isn't going to make drivers better unless we truly believe the deaths were intentional, or we believe that we can terrorize people who pay attention 99% of the time into increasing their game.

I realize we have stupid aggressive drivers, texting drivers and other people doing the wrong thing, but the majority of cycling accidents happen because regular drivers happened to momentarily miss the cyclist before they turned. If that wasn't the case, the majority of bike accidents would have a normal distribution, but most bike accidents happen during twilight or at night. That demonstrates that visibility is a much bigger issue than drivers failing to do right.


I'm not here to apologize for drivers, but cyclists are so unrealistic about the causes of cycling accidents and just how proficient and aware drivers could ever be expected to be. Fighter pilots miss stuff sometimes - how can we possibly expect drivers to do much better?