livedarklions

Accident doesn't imply act of God. It just implies lack of intent. "Reckless accident " and "criminally negligent accident" are not contradictions in terms. And the word "crash" has no moral component that "accident" lacks.

The one that really should make people mad is when a car hits a bicyclist and it's referred to as a "bike accident" or a " bike crash".

ridelikeaturtle

A driver hits a person on a bicycle. Cars don't act on their own. But... yeah.

scott967

There's some thread drift. The simple reason why road penalties aren't higher is that as a society, we recognize (or maybe rationalize is a better term) that being able to move about by vehicle is important enough that we accept some accidents/crashes (insert your word of choice) will cause severe impacts including death. Compare to aviation: we don't assume travel in flight is as necessary, so we are OK with much tougher licensing and oversight.

Of course, we try to instill the "driving is a privilege" idea, but in practice that isn't true (and I think a case can be made that it's more of a right).

But if we really want "road penalties to be higher" we would require cyclists and peds to have licenses and throw cyclists in jail for blowing a stop sign.

scott s.
.

livedarklions

A driver hits me, I hit him back or shrug it off, the car hits me, not so much. The object that's hitting the cyclist is the car, not the driver. We all understand the driver is supposed to control the actions of the car, that's actually the job description.

And actually, some cars do act on their own, just not very well as of right now.

Kat12

Or "are thought to be based on others' opinions." For example: there are a lot of people who will blame others for their own screw-ups. (I've seen it.) They'd probably report on the survey that the other person was "a bad driver." (And, "road rage" is not synonymous with "bad driver." You can be the best driver in the world and still be fed up with other people, or screaming at them as you drive extremely skillfully and carefully down the street...) That's common psychology: I'm good at this but everyone else is bad at it. How many workplaces could you walk into where everyone you asked was the only one who actually did any work around there and everyone else just sat around on their arses lazily and never did anything?

Rick

In many places in the world, they attack the problem. They do this by redesigning the roads as best as they can, to make it less possible for motor vehicles to collide with non motorized road users. There are very few examples of this being done in the USA. Another way the non motorized road users are protected is its not acceptable to injure or kill non motorized road users under any circumstances. If somebody makes the excuse that I didn't see the pedestrian or bicyclist, they will suffer even more extreme consequences for there crime. You need to be conscious of the problem enough to change and this isn't going to happen in the USA.

genec

Wet roads appear wet, and the choice to drive at a speed to cause slippage, or to drive on bald tires is a choice made by the driver. Black ice can easily be invisible, and the conditions may be such that the black ice only forms in certain somewhat "random" areas.

Making the choice to drive for the conditions is a good decision... but far far too many drivers make the choice to "drive at the speed limit," while ignoring the actual conditions. And far far too many drivers consider "the speed LIMIT" a mere suggestion... thus making the choice to drive in an unsafe manner.

Truck???

I-Like-To-Bike

Where are these "many places"?

genec

Mostly outside the US of A... places like Copenhagen, Finland, even Paris, and Amsterdam, and Barcelona, but there are also a few scant examples in the US... such as Davis, CA... all areas where roads have been modified, or changed or redesigned to increase the safety of cyclists and encourage cycling as a means of transportation. Even my old commute route in San Diego was modified to separate cyclists from motor traffic.

Yes, it is amazing what can be done when the political will is there to make positive changes.

Rick

Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands. To name a few

Koyote

If it wasn't deliberate, it was an accident. You don't get to make up definitions.

In many states (perhaps most or all - I'm not an attorney) there are enhanced penalties for people who cause accidents and deaths while being careless. Short of egregious carelessness, do we really want to use criminal prosecution to punish people for accidents? What would we hope to accomplish with that? You're talking about people who screwed up -- not people who are maliciously dangerous.

A better solution would be to put more resources into driver training and testing, better monitoring of young drivers and drivers over age 65 (given the higher accident and fatality rates for both groups) and better mass-transit systems (since they are safer than individual motor vehicles). Simply locking up drivers who run over cyclists may appeal to some people's tastes for vengeance, but it won't save lives.

Rick

Yes continue protecting those people who just screwed up an call it an accident! As long as it is not a crime to create a collision by being distracted, then people will continue to go about there daily lives and not worry about running down pedestrians and bicyclists. In most places in the USA you have to prove malicious intent or they need to admit to their wrong doing so they are liable. If people new they would be in real trouble for what many of them call an accident. There would be a major reduction of collisions. Just say something stupid like I didn't see that person on the bicycle as an excuse to a judge, in the Netherlands or some other European countries. You will be made a fool and you will suffer the consequences.

Mark Stone

Depends on what the screw up is. Being distracted by cell phone usage and causing a crash is something that can be prosecuted (at least in my city), but other screw-ups probably shouldn't be. Things like this probably need to be judged on a case-by-case basis. Examples: You spill hot coffee on yourself? Your passenger gets angry and slugs you? You come around a curve and there's something in the road so a sudden swerve is necessary? I think we can't make blanket judgements, and need to know the facts of each case.

Koyote

If you are making an assertion, you need to support it. Otherwise you are just stating your opinion and pretending that it is a fact.

There is a large amount of evidence which suggests that longer sentences (or other harsher penalties) provide little additional deterrence to crime. Source, source. What little deterrence is provided by harsher sentencing probably only applies to pre-meditated crime, not to crimes of passion - and I would guess it would have virtually no impact on crimes which occur coincidentally with carelessness or distraction. In other words, harsher penalties for careless motorists would likely save no lives.

Slightly OT: decades ago, my father and another motorist were killed in a multi-vehicle auto accident which was caused by a commercial truck driver. The trucker made a mistake which had a nasty outcome - but it was the sort of mistake that was understandable to most drivers. It certainly was to me. The trucker's employer had adequate insurance, which paid out a couple of rather large settlements, and the trucker lost his commercial license; what good would it do to throw him in jail, especially when the evidence suggests that such penalties would not reduce accident and fatality rates? Imprisoning the guy would just be meanness for its own sake, and would make the rest of his life much more difficult.

Daniel4

See the bickering going on in this thread? The same thing happens at the State, Provincial and Municipal levels of government. Some politicians want to improve public safety, others deny there is a problem.

Rick

When someone is distracted by their choice to do the wrong thing and they injure, or kill another person, they should be liable in such a way that they believe it to be undesirable to do anything other than pay attention to driving while they are behind the wheel.

Assert this!: The current penalties in most jurisdictions in the USA for injuring or killing someone with your motor vehicle don't mean squat. I could care less about studies about prison reform. These studies have a bias. Change comes by force not three hots and a cot. Depending on the situation they should be held accountable. Things like taking their vehicle and revoking their driving privilege's. Forcing them to pass an advanced driving course not the usual insufficient ones. And if they were intoxicated or intentionally violent, put them in a cage. Most of what are called accidents can be avoided. This obviously does not include instantaneous stupidity or things out of our control. When I drove truck for a motor carrier I was passing thru the chicken house and the officers had me pull off to the side and motioned for me to look at the back of my trailer. I went back and a white Camaro was under the DOT bumper almost up to it's windshield. This was during stormy weather and they surmised that this incident was out of my control. The passed out drunk Camaro driver was uninjured.

Koyote

Ah, you're one of those people: "if I don't like the evidence, I'll just say it's biased." I would point out all of the logical fallacies in that approach, but I suspect that I would be wasting my time.

If you are not willing to engage with actual empirical evidence, there is not much point to further discussion.

Rick

At least I am one of those people. I don't approve of fake studies done so the criminals are let loose back onto the streets. More murders thefts and now people are being beat down. That is empirical enough for me. I propose ways to improve a really bad problem and you want to make it personal. We should continue this discussion in a constructive way unless you want to cry home to mama.

alo

Some people suggest that the penalties for accidents should be the same or similar as those for intentional crime.

I believe the penalties for unintentional accidents should be much lighter than those for intentional crime.

You may be involved in an accident in the future. If the penalties are tough, you get the tough penalty. Would you want that if it was an unintentional accident.

Rick

I believe the penalties for unintentional accidents should be much lighter than those for intentional crime.

You may be involved in an accident in the future. If the penalties are tough, you get the tough penalty. Would you want that if it was an unintentional accident./QUOTE]

I don't believe in the catch all term accidents. There are things that are in our control and things that are out of our control.

GhostRider62

When a motorist mows one of us down, police officers rarely check the mower downer for substance abuse nor do they routinely check if they mower downer was on their phone because it was just an accident.

livedarklions

You have any evidence for that assertion?

livedarklions

I'm a lawyer and it's incredibly obvious you have no familiarity with the laws regarding criminal negligence and recklessness. Almost nothing you say in that post is correct, and if you're under the impression that the US is LESS criminally punitive than other comparable countries, you are sorely mistaken.

Malicious intent would be required to prove assault or malice murder (this kind of homicide is called different things in different states). There's all sorts of felony traffic offenses and homicides that don't require anywhere near malicious intent. The reason I said I wasn't going to play with the OP in this thread is because it assumed that penalties in the US are low which is begging the question. Low compared to what? What would be accomplished by raising them? How much should they be raised?

There's plenty of law on the books, if the problem is that police don't properly investigate or juries won't convict, your raised penalties won't get imposed anyway. Now if you want to have a real discussion of the issue, stop accusing people of trying to protect murderers. It just makes you sound stupid because obviously no one is trying to do that. The goal is to reduce or eliminate cyclist hit by motor death and injuries. Criminal penalties may play some role in that, but I don't think they're anywhere near the heart of the cause of the problem, nor would play much of a role in the solution.
Or you could just continue to stupidly insult people and end up talking to yourself. I'm good either way.

Koyote

This is the USA circa 2021. Facts don't matter.

livedarklions

And others just think throwing more people in jail will solve all problems.