JW Fas

Long story short, a local cyclist and father of 10 was hit and killed on 27AUG. He was in the bike lane on a road I frequently ride myself. It didn't take police long to find the offending vehicle (which had been abandoned), but it was only until today that we received word the driver was found and charged. Her actions were a trifecta of heinousness: 1) high on Percocet, 2) texting and looking down when she hit Charles, and 3) she tried to cover up what she did.

https://www.kshb.com/news/crime/wisc...d-father-of-10

Charles' family lives only a few streets away from me. If there is any silver lining, a GoFundMe was established for his wife and children, and so far it's raised over $200k.

Paul Barnard

So sad and senseless.

JoeyBike

Great! I'm sure she's the very last distracted substance abusing motorist out there. So, back out on the road ya go! Nothing to worry about.

Milton Keynes

The sad thing is that you don't have to be high on Percocet to run over someone on a bike because you were texting. But I'm sure that contributed to her poor decision making. Hope they throw the book at her.

nomadmax 

I'm going with probation and time served.

RIP cyclist.

sam21fire

I live in WI and am frequently amazed and infuriated to read news articles about someone getting arrested for their (wait for it).. 12, 13, or 14th OWI (operating while intoxicated). And they STILL get a comparative slap on the hand, usually a year in jail and their license stays suspended/revoked. Why you ask? Because the Wisconsin Tavern League pays an obscene amount of money into legislative election campaigns. I wish I could be surprised that the driver is from Wisconsin but sadly I'm not.

Daniel4

I see this as a trend that the driver is normally not charged if he stays at the scene and victims are either pedestrians or cyclists.

The only time drivers are charged are
1) hit-and-run;
2) DUI or suspended or no licence;
3) already wanted by the police;
4) the victim is in a car or motor vehicle.

In the case of this story, it's hit-and-run, DUI and no licence.

rydabent

There should be a law that if you are on your cell phone, and hit someone, the fine is doubled.

rydabent

Actually I would support a law that says cell phone would shut down if moving faster than 10 mph.

Bald Paul

Unfortunately, in many states, it's not illegal to be on a cellphone while driving, even if it's not hands free. If you hit someone, you don't even get ticketed for being on the phone.

What would little Johnny and Susie do in the back seat of the SUV on that long family road trip without their phones? Many phones are BT linked to the auto's audio system for hands free use and can be set up for voice activated dialing. That could be useful should someone ever find themselves in a situation where they were being followed, or someone was road raging them, and they needed to call police. Stopping or slowing below 10MPH in such an instance wouldn't be too advisable.
It's a good idea, and if it could somehow be technologically feasible for the phone to detect (a) it's location in the car, and (b) if it was not being used in a hands free manner, then such a law would be great.

Daniel4

I wouldn't doubt that it's already possible for cell phones to already be able to detect who the driver is. I also would not doubt that the hesitancy is political.

Any politician who invokes this law would lose the next election.

Also, as long as this solution is not implemented, all the onus is on the driver who becomes involved in a collision. But if this solution were in place, then cell phone manufactures would have to take some responsibility if a collision were to occur because the detection failed to stop the driver from using the cell phone.

JoeyBike

Lawmakers want to yack on their phones behind the wheel too.

FBinNY 

\I'm not sure that doubling the fine is enough. Maybe the fine should be something like $0.50 per pound of the car (per the registration docs). Also, suspending driver's licenses doesn't seem to work much. Possibly judges taking away the offending cell phone for a period might hurt more.

Leisesturm

OMG. FB lives! As far back as 8 or 10 years ago I once had a GPS that had voice control. Voice Command mode didn't work all that well so I would be tempted to just try and use it conventionally. Nothing doing. If you were even in stop and go traffic it wouldn't take any input from the screen. Most phones know that you are driving and throw up a defeatable 'driving mode'. That is more than enough. If you defeat the 'driving mode' feature of your smartphone and are then implicated in a fatal accident, that should be that! It would only take a few permanent license suspensions to get the word out that texting and driving are fatal to your operators privileges. As I understand it, being a cyclist in Western Europe is much safer than in the U.S. mainly because there is zero tolerance there for killing a cyclist. Even if the cyclist were somehow at fault, you don't get to blame them and go on with your life like nothing happened. They don't jail you forever but you won't ever (legally) drive again. Makes the drivers pay double the usual amount of attention when they spot a cyclist.

JW Fas

Today there was a memorial ride held for Charlie. Donations were collected to further assist his family. Approximately 500 cyclists showed up to the event.

Recap of the ride:

genec

Sadly, that is often the case, when the driver stays at the scene... as the driver is then the only witness and can testify "they served/stepped right out in front of me, there was nothing I could do..." and that is readily accepted.

genec

That's gonna really make "voice by turn" google maps driving quite difficult. Perhaps drivers can just hold paper maps in their laps, eh?

indyfabz

In case you are not aware, "hit-and run" is (in at least most states) a crime in and of itself. You can hit a cyclist, pedestrian, or whatever and be 100% not at fault and still be charged with a crime for leaving the scene.

AmandaKY

Thank you fir sharing this information.

Gear_Admiral 

> You can ... still be charged with a crime ....

Exactly. You *can* be, but there's no guarantee. You can provide video evidence and have witnesses, but if no one died and you (the victim) did not have your car damaged, the police may just tell you pound sand. I've heard about too many stories to trust that committing a crime leads to arrest. If you commit a crime, the police may arrest you, or not. If it's very cloudy, then it may rain, or not.

rsbob 

so inappropriate.

mcours2006

So tragic, and happens far too often where the driver flees the scene thinking she can get away with killing someone. What despicable person, after hitting someone with a car, would leave them there to die? Distracted driving is going to be the death of all cyclists.

While riding home the other day I happen to glance over a passing vehicle along a winding road. The woman driver had one hand on the wheel and the other holding a phone. I yelled at her to get the f**k off her phone. She started to slow down to pull over, but thought better of it. Can't tell you what I might have said or done if she had stopped, but I'm sure it would have ruined both our days. I reported to incident in our Road Watch program.

Daniel4

What is the Road Watch Program? Is it available for Torontonians (North York, Scarborough, etc) to report parking in bike lanes and other types of bad driving? I have saved a few clips in my bike cameras so they may be useful after all.

mcours2006

https://onlinereporting.yrp.ca/RoadWatch.html

I've offered video clips and pics as well, but they've never contacted me for them.