I think this phrase used by the cops also reflects our society’s attitudes about cars. Every bad thing that happens is an “accident”. Drivers don’t give up control, they “lose control”. Our entire culture is programmed to use passive voice to deflect blame off drivers when talking about the two ton death machines.
IANAL but penalties for manslaughter can still be very steep. Presumably this would be nine counts as well, which are likely to stack up to life in prison regardless. This person will do hard time, I’m sure. As they should.
Totally. I gave up keeping track of how often our local paper reported some horrible auto incident like, “the car being driven by Mr. Smith left the roadway and ran through a family of 3.”
Yeah, but that’s not the initial charge. It’s reckless driving.
I’m bitter bc there’ve been a few instances around here lately where pedestrians were killed, but because the driver fell asleep at the wheel but was not inebriated, they get off with reckless driving instead of manslaughter. I find it infuriating. If you’re incapable of driving safely, don’t get behind the wheel, period.
And that’s not even touching on this guy’s likely motives…
You can edit the quotee’s name so it doesn’t sound like they said it when you’re really quoting a third party that the author referenced. I do this a lot when quoting the BB writers here, since they are often quoting external sources that I want to respond to. Example:
I was on a jury last year on a case like this. They can be charged with things in between reckless driving and full manslaughter, like negligent (or grossly negligent) manslaughter. I think that you just need the prosecutors take up the case.
Oh good question. The answer is no, for the way I do it. As soon as you manually edit the quote tag, extra features like that are understandably disconnected.
My god though I hope he is charged with something… impactful. In my city, also in Texas, a man has been attacking people at bus stops for several weeks and then he hit an employee at an HEB intentionally to run them over before pulling out a gun. Since no one got shot it isn’t big in the news but it’s definitely been an ongoing attack on bus stops here by a different heavily tattooed hispanic man.
This is so stupid. Cars are built to strict safety standards, require licensing, registration, insurance, and regular inspections. Governments can and do take away one’s right to use a car. Yes, people get run down by cars but things like strategically bollards stop all but the most determined.
And as far as “assault pencils” go, wake me up after there’s a mass killing done with one.
They were programmed to do that intentionally, and at great cost, by the car and insurance lobby. That cars had accidents rather than they were driven into people and things was a choice the industry made in framing violence by the rich on poor kids.
I’m pretty sure that UK police have deprecated the use of “accident” to describe an incident where a motor vehicle is crashed into something or someone. The coppers here have too. Unfortunately some of the media haven’t (many have) but then the political terms of debate are framed on shows called things like “Drive Time” where driving commuters are pandered to and the shows are primarily sponsored by car industry related companies.
