----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian" Subject: Re: OT - Yet Another Bike Accident
> The lead story within the Bicycling article was about a guy that got hit > from behind at 50mph while he was on the shoulder. The woman that hit > him just drifted onto the shoulder and hit him and didn't even realize > it happened until she saw the guy hit her windshield and fly over her > car. A driver in the car behind her saw everything. The cops said > because there was no criminal intent or negligence on her part he > couldn't charge her with reckless driving or anything else for that > matter. The "guess" by the investigators is that she was leaning over > trying to get something out of a bag and drifted over to the shoulder. > But because there was no proof of what happened there was no legal > action to be taken. The parents of the poor kid who was hit decided not > to go after the woman in civil court because she had no assets and > therefore wasn't worth anything. Meanwhile the kid was in acoma for > months and a "vegetative" state for months before gaining some > alertness. Very sad, very scary. We have a charge here called "driving without due care and attention" which covers that sort of thing. I'm rather amazed that a cop would say that drifting into the shoulder and hitting someone doesn't involve a certain amount of negligence, since this is the way precedents get set, and negligence is the cause of virtually 100% of collisions. Now, in your neck of the woods, a person can probably use that in their favour if they "drift onto the shoulder" and take out a state trooper who is cutting someone a ticket. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
