crazy_lazy_bear

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/02/0...ey-bike-crash/

GrouchoWretch

All I can say is, that don't seem right.

dynodonn 

With one of the comments in the article stating that the motorist had their driving license suspended 19 times, if only half of this number is true, one can only speculate on why this motorist didn't even get charged just on being a menace to society. <sarcasm>

GrouchoWretch

Happy Motoring!

unterhausen

wishing the family success in their civil suit

UnsafeAlpine

This is why we need vulnerable road user laws.

howsteepisit

Its difficult to believe that any driver who has had his license suspended 19 times is still driving, it thats the case then the people who are reissuing the license are the criminals here. Sounds a bit like there was not anything for the grans jury to hang a criminal charge on, but I hope for his family that the civil suit proves fruitful. Especially against the company who would employ such a driver. ALthough, I am sure that any such company wuold be be albe to get insurance, once again making me doubt the veracity of the 19 suspensions claim.

B. Carfree

As near as I can tell from your mildly garbled post, you seem to doubt that a company would employ a driver who has had multiple suspensions of his/her license. I don't know how long you have been in Eugene, OR, but a dozen years ago a driver for a local beer distributor ran over a twelve-year-old girl while making his deliveries. Of course he didn't stop and in fact he attempted to have the damage repaired. His license had been suspended three times prior to this killing. The beer distributor said their only legal obligation when hiring a driver is to verify that his/her license is valid; they are not interested in looking at anyone's driving record.

nelson249

So the way forward is enforcement through insurance rates.

gmt13

My employer requires that any employee who drives a company vehicle report the lost of a DL within 24 hours. Of course this does not happen often (reporting that is); however we do periodic DMV checks and if unreported loss of DL is discovered, the employee is gone. If the record shows action over a defined threshold, the employee loses driving privileges, and in some cases this means loss of employment. I would believe that most employers respond to the threat of lawsuits or insurance hikes and so would have some standard. The problem is that most supervisors may want to cut a guy a break.

Criminal court is not and will never be the relief for these outrages, but you can grind them down in civil court.

-G

-G

howsteepisit

If my posts are too garbled for you to tolerate, then please ignore. Not been in Eugene long enough to know of that incident, but the distributors statement smacks of legal protection, not from what any reasonable risk management person would advise. Kind of like a COE of a company claiming that they checked with the lawyers and X was legal. Legal doesn't equate to right, wrong, moral, nor prudent. Any company that would hire a driver with such a record deserves to be sued out of existence. Most decent size companies have a serious risk management function and in no way would allow a driver with 19 instances of suspended driver license to drive a company vehicle because in any accident the driver would be indefensible.

smasha

i used to drive a taxi in NC. the permits for driving a taxi (issued by the city, IIRC) required that one had no more than ten points on their driving license to maintain a permit to drive a taxi.

that seems reasonable, until you consider that NC licenses get suspended when one has twelve points.

it was fairly common that some of the drivers had to go into "temporary retirement" for a few months.

rydabent

Sadly this is just another example of the fact that some how killing a cyclist is no big deal. I simply do not understand why killing a cyclist is not a crime.

While I usually hate big pay out court cases, I hope the family gets one and finally justice.

kmv2

The bike shouldn't have been in the way of such a reckless motorist.

kmv2

*Civil law is to compensate the victim not punish the wrongdoer. No jail time.
**Criminal law is to punish, and can result in jail time with a conviction.

In something like this there are usually two cases, one civil and one criminal. The best example of this to illustrate that I can recall would be the OJ Simpson murder trial (the glove didn't fit, so they must acquit! ~not guilty, no gaol) vs the OJ Simpson civil trial (guilty, but still no gaol).

And some nitpicking, cyclists/whatever, a human was killed, and it doesn't matter what vehicular contraption they were using.

jerseyJim

Follow up article I found posted in a nother thread.

https://www.boston.com/news/local/mas...ZhI/story.html

I have been thinking about this *incident for a couple of days and while this scumbag of a truck driver deserves to rot in jail for a long long time I think it is important to point out that this *incident could possibly been avoided by the cyclist if he had taken the lane.

It took me a while to realize that you can't depend on motorists to not try to pass you where it is not safe. You can count on them trying. The only way to stop them is to take the whole lane for as long as you need to to prevent anyone from attempting to make an unsafe pass.

Now I am not saying that this cyclist has any responsibility in this *incident at all. And who know this ******* might have run him down anyway.

I am just saying that he might be alive today if he had taken the lane.



*Edit to remove accident references

CB HI

Please stop calling these accidents. There was nothing accidental about this low lifes wreckless driving.

Chris516

+10