Posted byHere’s the Atlanta Journal-Constitution article:
http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett/gwinnett-first-vehicular-homicide-298753.html
From the “facts” in the story, on a dark, rainy night, a person crossed against the light and stepped in front of a car that was not speeding and had a green light. The driver’s lawyer says the driver was not texting at the time of the accident.
However, the Gwinnett police disagree and say that the outcome of the “accident” could have been different is the driver had not been texting. They say her use of the cell phone was a contributing factor and have charged Lori Reineke, the driver, with vehicular homicide.
(Police photo of Lori Reineke)
What do you think? Are we going too far in criminalizing accidents?
Category: Accidents, Current Events, Human Performance, Investigations, Pictures
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In the UK the crime would be causing death by either dangerous or reckless driving, taking homicide out of the equation ( the causing of death being seen as a the outcome of another crime rather than as a crime itself) the prosecutors may not have many options open, but the vehicular homicide charge sounds (on face value at least) to be a somewhat blunt instrument. Whether there was texting or not, the signs are that the driver was at least careless, she may not have been breaking a speed limit but was she doing an appropriate speed for the conditions? It seems fair to pursue this matter as a criminal case, there seems evidence that there may be criminal neglect or recklessness here.
Comment by Chris Black — March 9, 2010 @ 4:22 am
Interesting case, mainly because it leads to questions how it was established that she was sendig a text message. Police nowadayrs check mobiles for use shortly before or during an accident. One might question whether this is correct, but this is law enforcement.
It has been researched how using a mobile (whether text messaging or phoning) leads to distraction from driving. It is for sure that this does. So do we wonder that the police checks mobiles? I think not.
If you are text messaging and have an accident (even when you pass the green light) it is part of the case that you were distracted and “could have avoided the accident”.
I have my doubts whether this last part is true. It is very difficult to reconstruct what has happened. Could it have been that the victim crossed red at a moment where stopping (even without text messaging) was impossible? This leads to a different situation than with text messaging. This makes the driver less responsible for the accident.
It all revolves around the evidence of text messaging at the moment of the accident or shortly before: was there a distraction or not.
But what if she would have lit a cigarette? Isn’t that distraction as well? And would that have made the same amount of negiligence and culpability?
Hans
Comment by Hans Houtman — March 9, 2010 @ 4:32 am
Mark, your question “Will jail time for Lori Reineke make the world safer?” will really depend on whether the driver really was negligent. Driving is risky business and many people are just not paying enough attention to their main task when they’re behind the wheel. Having said this, I had a serious near miss recently. Thanks to my passenger, who saw a kid come running out from nothing and who gave me a warning, I was able to brake in time. Bad weather conditions, dark, around 8 pm. Maybe I was distracted myself as I may have been mind wandering because I would have to drive through snow for over an hour. It’s easy to jump to conclusions, but we need the facts to judge.
Coming back to the case. There’s evidence that distraction time associated with texting is not only the texting time itself, but also a certain (don’t know from the top of my head) period before and after texting. If you endanger traffic and cause an accident, you’re accountable for the results of your actions. The big question remains whether or not this was the case. So I cannot answer your question.
Comment by Michèle Jonkhout — March 9, 2010 @ 10:10 am
There is not enough information here to make any clear decisions. We all seem to be quick to blame the driver, but was the person walking against the light texting or listening to an Ipod, and equally distracted? There were two people involved, therefore two sets of human performance to look at. Ontario has just banned any hand held devices when driving, but even talking can be distracting from what is a very dangerous task – driving a ton and a half of steel at any speed! Car manufacturers are making enhancements to vehicles that could be said to encourage the use other distractions – automatic gearboxes leave one hand free rather than stick shift, GPS devices that require inputs etc. Driving is a behaviour that is not adequately re-enforced to get rid of bad habits, maybe we need to re-take our driving tests more frequently to do this? Either way, we are treating the driver as the ‘someone to blame’, instead of looking at the organizational weaknesses that allow both driver and pedestrian to make habitual errors.
Comment by Graem Meteer — March 9, 2010 @ 10:52 am
“Are we going too far in criminalizing accidents?” will be decided by the politicians and lawmakers, whether or not Ms. Reineke was texting while driving will be proven by the evidence provided at the trial and 12 jurors, and the local statutes will define the actual charge, (e.g. reckless driving causing death vs. vehicular homicide vs…).
In the end I’d argue that there isn’t a driver alive today who doesn’t know that using a cell phone, (for whatever purpose) while driving is inherently dangerous. As is almost always the case in “test cases”, the world will watch with interest to see what the sentence will be, assuming she is found guilty.
If it is proven that Ms. Reineke was texting while driving then this is without a doubt a contributing factor. It would be interesting to do a TapRoot.
Comment by Kevin B — March 9, 2010 @ 11:00 am
The time of transmission of data can’t be used to determine if the person was actually driving while distracted. A person could be reading a message that came in hours before. And sending a text has to happen sometime AFTER the the text is composed.
If the driver has an accident while composing, the message never gets sent, so no record exits. The only situation that could be used as evidence would be that a text message was transmitted from the driver’s device a small number of seconds before the accident.
Even establishing when an accident occurs would require video or other recorded evidence with a reliable time stamp.
So unless there is witness or video evidence showing that the drivers eyes where on the phone screen and not the road, there’s no real evidence that texting was a contributory cause.
There are so many other ways to divert a driver’s attention from the road: adjusting the heater/AC control, adjusting the radio volume, or even a movement outside that car that attracts their attention away from the road ahead.
As drivers we take our eyes off the road all the time. I would venture to say that “good” drivers know when its SAFER to attend to other tasks by maintaining a good situational awareness. A “bad” driver probably doesn’t even know what situational awareness is, let alone maintain it.
To reconstruct the situation and know what actually happened, all cars would have to have video surveillance both inside and outside.
but I digress.
The question is, was she culpable? Most US States define negligence as doing something that the actor SHOULD have know better not to do, and the action resulted in damages or injury. Gross or criminal negligence is defined as knowingly committing an act that results in damage or injury, and disregarding the risk to others. So its a matter of intent.
So the question becomes, did she know she was exposing other persons to risk when she was doing something that took her attention away from safely driving a vehicle? And how do we prove that she KNEW that her actions were risky? She probably engaged in risky behavior many times (as we all do) without undesirable consequences, and was certain there was no risk.
As Langeweiche said “Murphy had it wrong: Whatever can go wrong usually goes right, and then we draw the wrong conclusions.”
Comment by David Fuller — March 9, 2010 @ 11:13 am
There were two persons involved in this accident: the driver of the vehicle and the pedestrian who crossed the road against the light on a dark, rainy night when it was difficult to see him. Sending Lori Reineke to jail will not bring the pedestrian back to life, or create income for his survivors.
Big Brother has not yet managed the technology to turn off all texting on cell phones while a vehicle is in motion. Blue tooth technology makes it less distracting to talk and drive. Has anyone taken into consideration the remorse Lori might be feeling? The dead guy cannot be punished for braking the law, but it is ridiculous to punish Lori for both participants lack of judgment.
Comment by Kathy Swarthout — March 9, 2010 @ 8:31 pm
It seems to me that the hot button of texting while driving is getting the main focus. Except for a couple of the other posters the attention goes right to the driver and whether or not they are distracted. I believe that the politicians inject themselves into some of these issues without thought of “unintended consequences”. Police investigations are all to often a search for someone to blame. With one person dead the only one left usually gets the blame whether deserved or not. A real root cause investigation, to learn the failings, would look carefully at all the issues at play here and not focus solely on the driver. Municipal investigations are poor examples of root cause efforts.
Yes, I think we are going to far in criminalizing “accidents”, and not far enough to understand what is at work here that creates the failure.
Comment by Henry Veltman — March 10, 2010 @ 6:57 am
There is far to little iformation presented to make an assessment of this particular event. However, on the general of question of whether people should be held criminally responible for their failure to comply with legislative responsibilities I must respond YES.
Like most other developed countries, in Australia people found to have caused death by non-compliant behaviour whether it be driving irresponsibly or other similar offences face criminal penalties including imprisonment. Its not a debate it’s a given and people deal with it.
The question of Lori Reineke’s guilt or innocence is for the courts to decide but if she is found guilty she should face the full consequences of the law. Whether this would make the world a safer place is a stupid and irrelevant question. The issue is about responsibility and accepting the consequences of our actions.
People who wish to drive one and a half tones of metal around our streets have to drive according to the conditions and that includes the unexpected actions of pedestrians who are pretty vunerable to being belted by this one and a half ton lump of metal hitting them at even legally prescribed speed limits. The onus of responsibility falls on the operator of the vehicle because the unpredictable actions of pedestrians need to be considered. I wonder if those who defend or rationalise Lori’s actions would be as supportive if it had been a 5 year old kid rather than an adult?
It is illegal where I live to drive a car and use a mobile phone in any way yet the people I see doing so every day is astounding and this is despite the substantial penalties (not imprionment) that apply if caught by one of the diligengent members of our constabulary (2500 successful prosecutions last year).
These types of rationalisations and justifications are made by company directors and managers in prosecutions for workplace injuries and deaths and it’s just not good enough. People need to be held accountable for what they do and don’t do and the consequences of that. Just saying sorry doesn’t cut it. I don’t care how remorseful Lori or any other driver feels, if they were messing about with their mobile, if they were not paying attention to what was going on around them, is they were not driving sating sorry and feeling remourseful provides little comfort to the families of the victims.
Comment by Safety Bloke — March 10, 2010 @ 7:28 am
In my country (Colombia, South America), the use of the cell phone during the driving, is punished by a ticket. I think that is a unsafe practice to use the cell phone, to smoke a cigarrete, while driving a car. The person have to be focus on the driving, nothing else. Yeah, the lady should be prosecuted, in my opinion.
Comment by patricia suarez — March 10, 2010 @ 8:28 am
There is not enough information. Was she or was she not talking or texting? If she was then she should be punished for the infraction, but probably not for homicide. Was the person who stepped in front of her car talking on a cell phone? There is not just one path here, there are two and both could have been indulging in inappropriate behavior.
Comment by Bear Slothower — March 10, 2010 @ 9:44 am
There should be two separate processes at work. There is first the criminal liability and second the safety investigation. The question posed by Mr Paradies is a loaded one and distracts from the second process which focuses on preventing recurrence. At my agency, we separate these processes entirely. As safety engineers/accident investigators, we need to support the process that allows us to work towards preventing recurrence.
Comment by Ron Montague — March 10, 2010 @ 12:09 pm
This is a very unfortunate event and from a failure standpoint a couple of things quickly stand out; driver distraction and pedestrian violated crosswalk law. Texting is just a type of distraction and distraction from the critical task of driving is the issue on the first failure. We all prioritize distractions and how we let them affect us throughout our day to day lives. There are different degrees of distraction and the risk associated with them; the chances of striking a pedestrian on the interstate is low and more distraction may be acceptable to the driver however once in an area that is congested with many traffic lights and crosswalks the risk increases and the distractions usually decrease inside of the vehicle. In a perfect world we could all process this data and make good decisions on the fly but we are human and consistent deductive reasoning just isn’t going to happen. Laws have been made and passed to address the high level factors that put pedestrians and cars into bad situations such as speed limits, designated cross walks, traffic lights, caution signs and in some cases laws preventing the use of a cell phone but all of these rules are worthless unless they are enforced. Jaywalking or walking against the light may have become “normal” for the area; distracted driving resulting in speeding, red light running or small accidents may have become normal in the area. Both are just possibilities but they elude back to enforcement of rules already in place. Normalization of deviation and policy violations without consistent consequences will always end up the same. Treating her as a murderer is like treating a brain tumor with asprin, she will never do it again but the culture may not change.
Comment by Joshua Richter — March 10, 2010 @ 12:15 pm
Will it make the world safer? No.
Can you prove that she was texting at the exact time of the accident? They can probably prove that she had texted just before the accident but not during.
The light was green, and apparantly the police agree, and the conditions were dark and wet. If the pedestrian jaywalked, I believe the root cause is that they crossed against the light. Now, why did they do it? You’ll never find that cause as the person is dead.
In my opinion, she’ll be found not guilty.
Comment by Steve — March 10, 2010 @ 12:48 pm
He was jaywalking and she had a green light. Texting while driving is not yet against the law in GA – the case is baseless.
Comment by Stephen — March 10, 2010 @ 1:17 pm
This is going to become more common than not. I have seen in my years as an investigator that once law enforcement finds another “tool” to use to prove their “expertise” they will beat it to death. Many times in years past they had to rely on their own opinions as to contributing factors relative to investigations with no additional “tools” to back up their final statements. With the news media blaring almost daily as to the dangers of using cell phones and texting while operating a motor vehicle they now have a “catch 22″ to add to their reports. Unless the officer can corroborate his statement regarding whether the driver was or was not texting at the time of the accident then hopefully she has a good attorney to fight the claims. This topic has recently been one I have shared with my 3000 plus around the world, and it will become the next “guilty” until proven innocent that will be showing up in more and more cases and investigations. Hopefully the officers will learn to use good judgement when adding this as a contributing factor on their reports. On another note I was driving the other day and looked over at a patrol car that was driving down the street, and much to my surprise, the officer was not only on his cell phone while driving but he was also typing on his computer. This is one part of the new initiative to curb distracted drivers, and I believe they also need to look at their own house as well. (Also to add to the situation he was not wearing a seat belt at the time)
Comment by Dean Myers — March 10, 2010 @ 1:25 pm
An event is an accident if it was unavoidable, and there was nothing the people involved could have done to avoid it. That is not the case here. Driving has become so commonplace that we forget the responsibility involved…we literally are taking the safety of others in our hands when we get behind the wheel. She took a chance and lost. It doesn’t matter if she was using a cell phone or changing a radio station, she allowed herself to lose focus of her responsibility, and as a result, a person lost their life. I also disagree with saying “she BECAME distracted” because it implies that she is a victim of an external force over which she has no control. The fact is that she distracted herself.
Comment by Rafael Espinosa — March 10, 2010 @ 6:58 pm
If the defendant was texting while driving, we have a case of very bad judgment based on our knowledge of how this practice creates distractions. The person crossing the street had a responsibility to perform this simple act safely, e.g., looking both ways before crossing. If he/she was drug/alcohol impaired, than even more culpability can be assigned the street crosser. If the street crosser was sight or ambulatory impaired, his/her death is even more unfortunate. However, bottom line up front; there were no laws broken here & even if the Grand Jury indicts her, the jury of 12 will have to let her go.
Comment by David Davis — March 10, 2010 @ 8:38 pm
If the defendant was texting while driving, we have a case of very bad judgment based on our knowledge of how this practice creates distractions. The person crossing the street had a responsibility to perform this simple act safely, e.g., looking both ways before crossing. If he/she was drug/alcohol impaired, then even more culpability can be assigned the street crosser. If the street crosser was sight or ambulatory impaired, his/her death is even more unfortunate. However, bottom line up front; there were no laws broken here & even if the Grand Jury indicts her, the jury of 12 will have to let her go.
Comment by David Davis — March 10, 2010 @ 8:40 pm
An accident is just that – an unintentional and unavoidable act. If we criminalize mistakes that could paralyze anyone from acting at all. However, if she was texting, and if texting while driving is illegal in Georgia, then it seems to me to be negligence on the part of the driver. If she had not been texting, she likely would have seen the pedestrian (who was him/herself committing a crime) and might have been able to stop in time to avoid the accident.
Comment by Janis Price — March 11, 2010 @ 9:54 am
This is a very unfortunate situation to everyone with no Victors, but instead just losers. We know that an accident is the sum of a series of events leading to an unforeseen or unwanted outcome. That being said, we need to take into account as many aspects as possible that may have contributed to this tragic outcome:
1. Pedestrian
Any person crossing a street should be aware of the risk of performing such task, and also should also be aware that doing so in the wrong way may lead to serious injuries even fatal consequences. Therefore a person who willingly crosses the street with a red light is not only accepting the risk, but also increasing the chances of getting hit by a vehicle.
On top of crossing the street with a red light, it was a rainy night. That by itself takes the stakes of getting hit to a higher level not just because of the lack of visibility to both; the pedestrian and the car driver, but also by the degradation of a car stopping power under wet pavement conditions.
2. Driver
All drivers are responsible of operating their vehicles with the higher sense on awareness that they can have, if nothing else only because they are operating a highly sophisticated piece of machinery capable of causing serious injuries and even death, not only the vehicle occupants, but to people outside the vehicle as well.
It is also the driver responsibility to provide regular proper maintenance to the vehicle, in order to make sure that all the systems are operating under nominal conditions all the time. By the same token, it is also the driver responsibility to be fully aware of the road and weather conditions and make speed adjustments accordingly.
3. Distractions
Prosecutors and lawyers focus these days on the use of phones (either texting or talking) when an accident happens, trying to blame the use of the device for the occurrence of an accident. How about stepping back for a minute and looking at:
a. Changing radio stations
b. Changing AC settings to defog windshield
c. Setting new destination on GPS device
d. Closing sun/moon roof because is raining
e. Adjusting rear/side view mirrors
f. Looking for change to pay for the upcoming toll
g. Attending a kid on the back seat
These are all good examples of distractions that will make you change your attention from the road outside the vehicle to the inside of the vehicle. All it takes is a split second, and all of the sudden you are involved in a car accident. Slow motion accidents do not occur in real life. Only on TV advertisements.
Bottom line, is a tragic situation were both of the parties involved share some responsibility, and there is nothing that a Judge, Prosecutor, Lawyer, Priest or anybody else can do to erase that from the mind of the person who survive the accident and the survivors of the person who die on the accident.
Comment by Felix Semidey — March 11, 2010 @ 11:09 am
An accident may be unintentional, but it is certainly avoidable. Texting while driving is illegal for well-researched reasons. If one deliberately fails to heed the law then one is culpable. The consequences of this action were that someone died who need not have. Illegal activities which coincide (someone crossing a street in an illegal manner, someone else driving down the street in an illegal manner) inevitably share accountability for the consequences.
Comment by Shirley Mulder — March 11, 2010 @ 10:59 pm
I think one thing to consider in Felix’ post above is the degree of distraction each of those items imposes. For example, closing the sunroof may take only a single push of a button, and therefore the risk of serious distraction is low. Texting while driving imposes a greater distraction, and therefore has a higher risk of a bad outcome. Reading a paperback book is even more distracting. I’ll tell you that last night, driving home from work, I would have had an accident if I had been distracted by any of these items above (thank goodness for anti-lock brakes!) If I had hit the crumby driver last night while shutting a sunroof, I don’t believe I would have been considered at fault. On the other hand, if I had been reading a book, the perception of my culpability would have been different. I can guarantee the actual accident outcome would have been identical in either case.
Where do you draw the line? I guess that’s where the courts and legislatures kick in. We as a community (through our lawmakers, elections for judges, and participation as a juror) decide what is and what is not an acceptable level of risk.
Comment by Ken Reed — March 12, 2010 @ 7:36 am
Texting while driving is a contributing factor to the crime – agree, but first it must be proven that the woman was texting while driving. Second, texting while driving was not the immediate cause of the accident, I believe that the person crossed against the light is the immediate cause of the accident. I also believe that accident wont happen if the person did not crossed against the light and stepped in front of the woman’s car.
Therefore in my opinion, the woman should not be convicted due to he woman was allegedly texting while driving.
Comment by Adrian Araneta — March 16, 2010 @ 4:08 am
It may sound harsh, but the pedestrian should not have been in the road. If you stick your hand in a fire and get burned, you cannot blame the fire. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and I believe that each person is responsible for his/her own safety, except in cases where one intentionally harms another. In this case, the driver did not intend to hit the pedestrian.
Comment by Eric — March 16, 2010 @ 9:34 am
Distracted driving is dangerous and has consequences. I believe that there should be more laws in place to discourage all distracted driving. Unfortunately, issuing tickets is not much of a deterent. I don’t believe that incarceration is either (it just creates more crowding in an already overfilled jail system); unfortunately for both parties involved (who are both at fault) death caused by distraction IS a deterent. I’m sure this woman will not drive with distraction of any kind in the future (that she can control)–Have you seen the movie 7 pounds?
The question is, how can we educate drivers about the dangers of distracted driving without actually killing people?
Comment by Carol — March 16, 2010 @ 12:42 pm
Was the vehicle a Prius? Might be Toyota’s fault.
Even if it wasn’t, why didn’t the vehicle have a distraction alarm installed, or a collision alarm.
Comment by Grant — March 16, 2010 @ 6:46 pm
I should think that there must be an onus on the police and prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the pedestrian would not have been killed if the driver were not texting, otherwise there is a failure to establish that, even if the driver were distracted, she had the ability and responsibility to avoid the illegally crossing victim.
If the police are this agressive, I suggest that the lady engage a good lawyer and go after them for a malicious prsecution. Too often law enforcement does not execute its responsibility to enforce the law, this smells like law making on the fly.
Comment by Alan Weston — March 18, 2010 @ 4:21 pm
OK …
After reading these extensive comments there are two things I am concerned about.
1. Attention
For all those who think that drivers should NEVER be distracted … GOOD LUCK.
On human limitation that we all face is a limited attention span. Even if you try really hard to pay attention, most people will be “distracted” after about 15 minutes of boring observation.
This common human trait is called a “vigilance decrement” by human factors PhD types.
The Root Cause Tree® addresses this limitation under the “monitoring alertness” category. You can see the Corrective Action Helper® for ideas to reduce the problem of being unable to “pay attention” for extended periods. But even with that … We will never be perfect.
This is not an excuse for texting while driving. Just a caution to those that somehow think we can be 100% vigilant.
2. Prosecutor Discretion
The government has “unlimited funds” to prosecute someone. Most people have very limited funds.
Imagine if you were driving on a dark, rainy night and there was light traffic and your phone rang. Would you be distracted? Just for a second? Even if you didn’t answer it?
Her attorney says she was NOT texting when the accident happened. It is difficult to prove that she was.
Let’s just say there is conflicting evidence.
If the prosecutor goes forward, it puts a tremendous burden on the person being prosecuted. Most people can’t afford OJ Simpson’s Dream Team. Most people can’t even afford the minimum of $10,000 that it will take just to secure a good attorney. So, just to pay to defend yourself, you are looking at financial ruin. And this is on top of the emotional stress you are already facing after being the driver of a car that was involved in a fatality.
So before you jump on the prosecutor’s band wagon, imagine that it was your son or daughter that was the driver of the car that had someone step off the curb right in front of them at a green light. Maybe they were texting. maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were not 100% vigilant. Should they face financial ruin (win or lose) and jail (if they lose) over this accident?
I not suggesting that people intentionally running over pedestrians go unpunished. But I don’t think that happened here.
Let me know how you feel.
Mark
Comment by Mark Paradies — March 19, 2010 @ 11:33 am
I am somewhat amused by the implied message in many posts that the use of items such as cellphones is acceptable whilst driving. More worrying is the belief that the pedestrian brought this on himself. are errors in judgement really justifiably punished by death.There is a belief in some quarters that we have overloaded our vehicles with onboard instrumentation and equipment and that vehicle design sould be brought right back down to absolute basics.
Imagine that the victim (for that is what the pedestrian is) was your son or daughter, would you not expect the state to pursue all avenues to establish that the person in command of 2 tonnes of steel was doing all they should be doing to maintain alertness?
Comment by Chris Black — March 24, 2010 @ 6:02 am
If she was texting she has contributed to the accident.
The pedestrian crossing when he did not have right of way so he is also at fault.
If you text and drive you must know that is wrong on so many levels and a ban is the minimum she should expect.
Is it homocide given both parties are at fault (IMO) then no.
If you think it is safe to text and drive, do us all a favour and cut your licence in half and stay off the roads as you are a danger to yourself and other road users.
As to pedestrians that cross when it is not safe to do so, perhaps they should find another way to remove themselves from the gene pool.
Comment by Karel Burgoyne — March 24, 2010 @ 11:58 am
In most cities, pedestrians act as if they have the right of way; this one by crossing against the light, which is generally considered against the law in the US. The pedestrian also was acting under faulty assumptions: that the driver could see an unlit pedestrian to the same degree that s/he could see a lit vehicle in the rain and that the driver would have really good reflexes. In this case, his/her errors in judgement were punished by death. This is Darwin’s law in action.
If it was my son or daughter this had happened to, I expect I would feel awful that I had not instilled a greater sense of responsibility for one’s actions in them while they were young and impressionable. Not that I wouldn’t be sad, naturally; however some of that sadness would be because a child of mine exercised such lousy judgement.
In this case, the driver, who probably didn’t expect an invisible pedestrian to appear directly in front of them while following all the traffic laws, cannot reasonably be held culpable for dumb people dying.
This precise thing happened about a year ago where I live, and the poor 18 year old who killed the pedestrian was devastated and required serious therapy to be convinced that she was not somehow at fault. The pedestrian had apparently decided it was too wet to walk on the side of the road or even on the correct side (facing oncoming traffic).
There is right and there is dead right, or as my mother used to say, “Step out and meet Jesus.”
Comment by Anne Hill — March 24, 2010 @ 2:00 pm
Where is the humanity? Both individuals made errors, both paid for it. I would hope that if I or anyone else I cared for ever slipped (which we all do) it would not end up as a lynching. There was no malicious intent.
The better outcome out of all this – more positive outcome for our society is that the driver learns and teaches others not to make the same mistake. The pedestrian can’t teach but the family can. We need more positive approached to improving our safety than condemning someone criminally for an error made by both parties involved. They are responsible for their actions sure but how do we positively grow from this?
My condolences to both families.
Comment by Karine Hinton — March 25, 2010 @ 10:53 am
Everyone wants to blame text messaging for wrecks. It surely is, but in this case? Her life is on the line. Drop the emotions and look at the evidence.
A causal factor is something that if had not occured would have lessened or prevented the wreck.
- Actions of People- Evidence – (IE no dotted lines)
Vehicle going speed limit.
Pedestrian moves on to road in front of vehicle traveling speed limit
- Actions of people – no evidence –
No proof that text messaging was going on durring the accident. IF Text messaging two minutes before (maybe at a stop light??? or stoped somewhere) are not causal factors – becuase they would not have changed the outcome.
-Conditions-
Rain
Night
Pedestrian did not have the light
Was pedestrian distracted or otherwise impared – why would you walk in front of an on coming car? Was the pedestrian wearing dark clothing or hard to see?
What are the causal factors -
Pedestrian decided to walk in front of the vehicle – definately would have prevented the wreck
Rain – if it hadn’t been raining maybe could have stoped sooner – but this should have been a clue to the pedestrian as well… is it reasonable to expect people to break the jaywalking laws in these conditions??
night – if it hadn’t been dark maybe would have seen the pedestrian break the law and reacted.
Bottom line – The pedestrian is at fault. Don’t walk (run??) out in front of traffic, expecially at night in the rain.
Comment by Eric — April 7, 2010 @ 1:02 pm
Wow! Amazing variety of opinions.
Let’s think about corrective actions for a minute…
If you had to make sure this type of accident “never happened again” what type of safeguard might you implement?
I’ll post this as a new “Monday Accident & Lessons Learned” so people can find it more easily.
Mark
Comment by Mark Paradies — April 27, 2010 @ 4:23 am
Wow! Even more comments here:
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/home/headlines/84076547.html?storySection=comments#commentSection
Comment by Mark Paradies — April 27, 2010 @ 4:37 am
There are an incredible variety of opinions, all of them correct in the minds of those who express them, and all of them correct or wrong in the minds of those who read them.
My opinion is that there were rules requiring compliance from both parties in this incident, and the only way it would have been prevented was if they both believed the rules were necessary and complied with them voluntarily.
If the driver had been paying full attention to driving in poor visibility, (the evidence does not seem to prove she wasn’t) and the pedestrian had waited for the red light to turn green, (the evidence suggests he didn’t) the incident would probably not have happened.
Road traffic rules are designed and instituted to help prevent road users “meeting by accident”, and apply day and night and in both fair or foul weather.
Until parents set good examples while bringing their children up by complying with the rules, and condition their minds to do the same, we will breed generation after generation of new road users who will believe the rules are there for someone else, and will continue to have incidents of this nature.
I believe that road accidents in thec USA killl about 40,000 people every year … that’s about the same number of people who run the New York Marathon – imagine them all laid out in Central Park before the race … would that drive a “need to comply” message home ?
Comment by Eric 2 — May 25, 2010 @ 2:36 am
Was this a crosswalk with pedestrian stop and go lights? Would it have mattered if the pedestrian was texting too?
Hard to cast all the blame on the driver here.
Comment by Mike — July 27, 2010 @ 9:19 am