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Life is cheap in Tucson, Arizona, where a driver faces a misdemeanor for killing a cyclist
https://www.kgun9.com/news/community-inspired-journalism/westside-news/driver-faces-misdemeanor-charge-over-west-tucson-collision-that-killed-bicyclistOpen linkView original on sh.itjust.works
25 replies
If it's a genuine accident, then what does a harsher punishment achieve? People make mistakes. Some people are unfortunate enough that their mistake has grave consequences - doesn't mean they're any more to blame, just unluckier.
Texting and driving is a good example. Every single person who drives has done it at least once in the past and everyone who claims they haven't is lying. What's the difference in the intent of a person like this and one who does end up killing someone while doing so? None. The others simply were luckier. The unlucky ones are not morally more guilty than the others.
I texted while on my bike [bicycle] once, and it scared the crap out of me how far I got and how much of my surroundings I missed just by the few seconds I took at a time glancing at the screen. I'd leave my phone in the back seat if I ever drove a car. Terrifying that people do this regularly.
It's much more common than most people realize. Just yesterday on my way home 3 oncoming cars in a row all had their driver using their phone. It's honestly amazing that we don't just have people dying left and right considering nobody is looking where they're driving. Hell, even the kids cycling to school are all on their phones.
Yeah it's incredible how much safer cars are now than fifty years ago -- also my pet theory of why everyone drives like shit. A lot of people used to die in horrific car crashes as teenagers and everyone learned to drive correctly for fear of death. Now people get into an accidnet every few years and walk away uninjured each time.
They ended someone, that should be a big deal.
No i dont text and drive like i dont drink and drive. Ever. Everyone who does it should go to jail every time but we live in an imperfect world.
So long as the driver appears sorry and says they didn't see them, it's usually a pass. Cops don't care.
What do the cops have to do with it? Are you suggesting the cops just let people go after killing someone?
Yes
Sounds like a decent market for hitmen.
Given that's the driver's only violation of traffic law here, a misdemeanor seems appropriate. The bulk of the blame here lies with the city and its urban design.
Edit: Here's some context for what I mean:
This is the intersection in question. I've drawn the bicyclist's path in blue and the truck's path in purple. The speed limit here is 35 mph, or approximately 55 kph. Look at it on something like Street View if you like.
There is no bicycle infrastructure around here. The gutters that are here are completely unprotected and aren't even marked for bikes. Not only that, but it's crossing a riverbed, making it one of the few places a bicyclist coming from or going to a fairly large suburban area can access the rest of the city (the other way, another mile south, is "Speedway Boulevard", which as you can guess is even less safe).
There should be no world in which bicycles are sharing this infrastructure with cars, and it's the city's fault they have to.
I don't think it's right to put the entire weight of that enormous societal failure on someone who wasn't fully paying attention when they were turning left.
That's a pretty normal (bad) intersection. I would agree society in general holds much of the blame but I also don't think a misdemeanor is appropriate for someone who killed another person while not paying attention.
We can do both. The city should be fined and forced to improve infrastructure. The driver should be held to task for failing to properly operate a multi-ton vehicle. Their job as a licensed driver is to be the safest, most responsible person possible and make corrections for any hazards or circumstances that may arise. There is NO excuse to kill someone just because you wanted to turn left and these punishments aren't nearly enough.
That's not what was happening here, or at least there's nothing to suggest that's what was happening here.
This happened at 06:00. Sunrise in Tucson yesterday was approximately 06:15, so it was dark. Westbound traffic has a traffic light and is allowed to turn left. What ostensibly happened is that this driver had a green light (but not a green arrow), didn't see anybody coming, and turned into a bicyclist, killing them. A driver is being held to task for failing to properly operate a multi-ton vehicle – they're being held to task for their portion of the fault.
You can do both, but you have to do both proportionally instead of throwing up your hands and saying "well they both suck". Clearly, the bulk of the blame rests with the city, because a) cars and bicycles should not have to share this space, and b) any reasonable planner would foresee this kind of problem. This is horribly designed in a way that charging anything more than a misdemeanor would be unjust and a ridiculous stretch of consequentialism.
There are no accidents, only collisions.
As long as society at large sees that the consequences for killing someone with a car can be a slap on the wrist, it is injustice.
Justice is a difficult topic. It would be one thing if this was the first car crashing into a bicycle ever, and the mayor, governor, and president all decried the tragedy and closed the roads until improvements could be made. Then i could see giving the driver a misdemeanor since society is taking responsibility and justice is being done.
Is this another day in the life in America? Maybe with more serious consequences for the driver, there would be political will to actually change things and prevent these tragedies.
If you're driving somewhere horribly designed or something, then you have to drive more slowly and carefully. It's absolutely no excuse to crash your vehicle into any object. Doesn't matter if it's bad road design or bad weather, you are responsible for driving your car.
Yeah I think we agree pal lol
"If you want to kill someone, do it with a car"
Bike had right of way.
Yes. Literally everyone here understood that. Did you want to add something to this discussion?
Is your entire argument that we shouldn't charge traffic violations which result in deaths as felonys because we currently don't? Exceedingly few people in this thread care about this case they want to fix the law to properly provide disincentives which is what criminal liability is for.
You better fucking not be taking turns before verifying that it's safe to do so.
If you read my other two comments and that's your takeaway, I don't think any explanation's going to help you.
The individual should 100% be blamed.
You mean the one state that doesn't celebrate Martin Luther King Day?
Huh