Or maybe if he had painted the pipe white? This is so tricky ....
While I would not be unhappy if the guy had gotten a longer sentence, in terms of the vast anf much worse injustices happening every day, this one is not hard to swallow.
if the guy hadn't been riding a bicycle none of us would have heard about this. if the kid had run down the guy while he was walking, we would have had a vastly different initial impression.
As it stands, I am not real sorry that there is one less woman-beater on the streets. And since ht driver clearly Only committed the crime (a serious crime, to be sure) to remove a woman-beater who abused his mother, from the population ... i am fairly certain that he will not re-offend.
Since there is nothing I can do to change any of this, I will simply accept it. There are a Lot worse things happening all the time anyway ... swallowing this one will not be that hard.