I saw this thread this morning but I put off reading it until after my trip today. I spent most of my time riding on 4 lane highways, many of which had no useful shoulder and when there was one it had rumble strips on it. I’m really happy I waited. This shit is too damn horrible. I can’t see sending the dude to jail for something that wasn’t intentional, but I’d love to see his license revoked for a few years.
The scary thing is that, as dangerous as the roads are here and in europe, they are 100x worse everywhere else in the world. And with the majority of the driving public in other countries, it is very likely that the situation will stay this way for a while. Many countries are building as many roads as they can with little thought to safety for anyone. Case in point: There were several large shopping centers in thailand that had no 4-way intersections at their entrances despite being situated on 6 lane divided highways. This meant that probably half the people going there were forced to make u-turns on a major highway without a light just to get to the parking lot. In one case there was a light directly in front of the center but they decided to make two entrances, one before and one after the light. I personally witnessed two accidents involving people making u-turns there.
So it sucks to think about, and we still need to do everything we can to make them better, but the roads here are incredibly safe compared to the worldwide norm.
I would disagree. High quality roads and traffic signals that isolate traffic from pedestrians and cyclists doesn’t yield safer roads. Your assertion assumes that correlation.
a guy i worked with got trashed at a bulls game and went speeding down a major avenue on the north side at 80 mph, wrecked, caused a 7 car pileup put himself in a coma and had to have brain surgery and killed a cyclist. he was charged with manslaughter, and after his brain healed up he was back at work awaiting trial.
that was a couple of years ago and i left before his trial, most people at work thought he was an alright guy and hoped the best for him. i don’t know how the case went, but i can’t believe he wasn’t charged with murder.
I would disagree. High quality roads and traffic signals that isolate traffic from pedestrians and cyclists doesn’t yield safer roads. Your assertion assumes that correlation.[/quote]
I don’t think you fully understand how bad the roads I’m talking about are. But, yes, there is a correlation between properly designed roads and safety. We design roads pretty well here. I didn’t understand that until I rode in a non-western country.
having ridden bikes in england, france, spain, and guatemala, I’d say the united states is pretty bad at designing roads.
sure, it could be worse, but it should be a whole lot better. I honestly consider the US a third world country on a lot of points these days.
[quote=lot_22]a guy i worked with got trashed at a bulls game and went speeding down a major avenue on the north side at 80 mph, wrecked, caused a 7 car pileup put himself in a coma and had to have brain surgery and killed a cyclist. he was charged with manslaughter, and after his brain healed up he was back at work awaiting trial.
that was a couple of years ago and i left before his trial, most people at work thought he was an alright guy and hoped the best for him. i don’t know how the case went, but i can’t believe he wasn’t charged with murder.[/quote]
To be charged with murder, you need to show criminal intent. Manslaughter is the murder on accident charge. In NY if you’re drunk it becomes an aggrevated charge, like… aggrevated vehicular manslaughter.
Interestingly enough… this creates many more hit and runs. If you flee the scene and are caught when ur sober, the charges of hit and run and vehicular manslaughter are typically less than aggrevated vehic manslaughter. I dunno if people know that or if they’re just generally shitbags.
Edit: people are probably just generally shitbags.
edit: if u leave a dying HUMAN on the side of the road to dodge jail time, fuck you. (Like what, half of the NFL?)
[quote=EivlEvo]In Texas (which has some weirdo Penal Codes).
Reckless as defined by the Texas Penal Code under Sec. 6.03. Definitions of Culpable Mental States.
(c) A person acts recklessly, or is reckless, with respect to circumstances surrounding his conduct
or the result of his conduct when he is aware of but consciously disregards a substantial and
unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur. The risk must be of such a.
nature and degree that its disregard constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that an
ordinary person would exercise under all the circumstances as viewed from the actors standpoint.
[/quote]
The difficulty in a case like this, is that it would be extremely hard to prove the m/r beyond a reasonable doubt. In all honesty, the driver was more than likely negligent in the legal sense of the term than reckless. Basically one would have to prove that driver was aware that swerving posed a “substantial and unjustifiable risk” and still did so. A prosecution under 19.05 Criminally Negligent Homicide would have much more luck where one would only have to prove that the driver “ought” to be aware.
Regardless, from these facts, this seems like a case for tort law. Negligence is more than actionable on the civil side of things and it wouldn’t take much to make a very good case as to all the elements in this instance. Of course there may be statutory prohibitions which would make the victims contributory negligent (though this isnt a full bar to recovery anymore) but I dont think the lack of breach issue would last long. A driver owes a duty to anyone in the shoulder. In fact it exists to give motorists (and arguably cyclists or pedestrians) a place of safety in the event of an accident/brakedown/etc… I really dont think that one could argue that a duty exists to broke down motorists but not to cyclists using it as a means of shelter from the traffic. In any event, I dont think a jury would take it unless there were some extraordinary instructions.