No. In all likelihood, a licensed driver who killed someone in this manner would have just gotten a failure to yield ticket.
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I wonder if there are any studies comparing the penalties for drivers who accidentally kill people vs. pedestrians and bicyclists who accidentally damage cars.
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There is no indication that the court took action against his driverâs license.
Ahmm, what license?
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At fault, in a legal sense, doesnât mean culpable of manslaughter or murder. Almost everywhere a pedestrian has right of way, but hitting a pedestrian that unexpectedly walks into traffic would simply get you a ticket for failure to yield.
As a motorcyclist I see similar things with bike fatalities. The most common two-vehicle crash is a auto turning in front of a motorcyclist and violating their right of way. Same resultâeven with a fatality, the result is typically a traffic ticket.
Iâm not disputing that. And actually I agree with you. I donât see the point in punishing someone for a horrible accident.
If they were negligent or reckless in their driving I could something more severe.
There is no indication that the court took action against his driverâs license.
How does a court take action against the driverâs license of an unlicensed driver?
A few years ago I sat in traffic court in Illinois waiting for my $300 lawyer.
They called the cases pleading guilty first and all of them needed the translator.
One after another: âNo license - $75, No insurance - $75, running a red light - $100. Pay the clerk.â
And then they went into their cars in the parking lot and drove away.
Agreed. I see the same thing in the motorcycling community. There is very often a demand for vengeance and blood.
The flip side is that very frequently these are the cases of total negligence and the result is the same. A case in Illinois where a women applying makeup rear-ended and killed a motorcyclist at a stop light. Occasionally, like Congressman Janklow in South Dakota, thereâs an actual manslaughter conviction. But thatâs incredibly rare.
I faced a larger fine for driving without proof of insurance. At the time I was driving my very drunk friend home in his car. (Please reread this paragraph.)
You, Cy Vance, have proven beyond any doubt that you are a pile of shit.
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Surely this is the point of the âcrosswalkâ.
Since some crosswalks without lights are out-of-view of some approaching cars, and other crosswalks with lights have crossing lights synchronized with intersecting left-hand-turn lights, and of course right-hand-turns without lights, I think the point is sometimes just to check off that they have crosswalks.
Was the court conducted in Cherokee?
If youâve just killed someone, in most cases you were being negligent or reckless in your driving. Turning in front of a cyclist/motorcyclist as @mototom suggested might not get you in much trouble, but it should.
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I would have thought at least negligent homicide of some kind. Since being licensed is supposed to mean that the driver knows theyâre supposed to yield but didnât, which has the possibility of being gross negligence if you rule out extenuating distraction, or inability to have seen the pedestrian at night, those kinds of things.
Bad guess.
The best pre-show was the court translator standing up, turning to the assembled crowd and giving instructions for which we needed a translator to translate.
Depends on the situation. You canât make a blanket statement like that. I donât know if you can even make a statement like âmost casesâ. Iâve T-boned a guy who pulled out right in front of me - nothing I could do. If he had died it would have been through no direct fault of my own. I donât know what the statistics are, but I would imagine its around 50/50. If someone finds numbers, let me know.
There is also the issue that a person can look and not consciously see another vehicle. I think itâs called a blind bias⌠where your brain can miss something it doesnât expect to see. For example that video that asks you to count how many time a group of kids pass a basketball, and you miss the fact that a guy in a gorilla suit walked through the scene.
I had it happen to me once. I started to pull out in a residential intersection, one I have gone through 100s of times, and this one time there was an SUV there. Fortunately they saw me, and I saw them soon enough to react and avoid an accident, but I remember looking to the left. Either they just happened to be hidden by the car frame, or my brain just blanked it out. Itâs hard for me to condemn someone on something they canât consciously control.
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Of course it depends on the situation, thatâs why I said in most cases. If however, youâre not âexpectingâ a person at a crossing then you shouldnât be driving.
Well, that was what I was going to ask here - did the unlicensed driver have insurance? At least add /that/ to the pile of tickets.
Here in California, peds have the right-of-way in legal crosswalks, marked or unmarked (essentially all street corners), but that doesnât cancel physics, and the California Vehicle Code recognizes that fact:
Sec.21950
(a): The driver of a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way to
a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or
within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, except as otherwise
provided in this chapter.
(b) This section does not relieve a pedestrian from the duty of
using due care for his or her safety. No pedestrian may suddenly
leave a curb or other place of safety and walk or run into the path
of a vehicle that is so close as to constitute an immediate hazard.
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