Fuck Cars
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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I agree with the judge's decision. He was driving at a reasonable speed. He made a single error of missing the signal. That is far below the threshold of gross negligence needed for a conviction.
However, the court was asking the wrong question. Safety is systemic. Those involved with this death are those who design the roads, those who design the cars, those who make the laws, those who train and license drivers, who all have some responsibility. No justice can come from trying to pin it all on a single individual.
They have built a transportation system in which a single human error results in fatalities. That is the real crime.
Deaths like this are common and entirely preventable. Justice is when we redesign transportation so no one dies in similar situations ever again.
You cannot design a road that is safe for someone who runs a light that has been red for 20 seconds
You can literally design roads without lights.
If we move to a broader perspective than just lights, there is nothing that physically forces the man to follow whatever traffic contraption we throw at him
Traffic lights encourage drivers to move quickly, and ignore their surroundings. They tell drivers to trust the intersection to be clear if the signal is green. This means that if a prudent and cautious driver makes the single mistake of misreading the light, it risks a high speed colission.
A 4-way stop would have slowed traffic, likely preventing fatalities in this case. Even if the driver missed the stop sign, the cross traffic would be slow enough to not push the SUV into the corner of the intersection. At the same time there wouldn't be pedestrians in the corner, because 4-way stops allow pedestrians to cross quickly, and doesn't require them to wait directly next to intersections.
This is an urban road. It was a choice to prioritize traffic speed and car throughput over pedestrian safety. This is the inevitable result.
he wasn't paying attention for twenty seconds. if it was yellow and he sped through it while it turned maybe that argument could hold some weight, but not paying attention to the road is gross negligence while operating heavy machinery.
You clearly weren't paying attention for the twenty seconds it took to read my comment.
yes there are systemic failing and corruption that needs to be addressed, and to go further the punitive system of justice is ineffective and should be replaced with more community oriented rehabilitative solutions.
that does not change the fact that gross negligence occurred and cost a father his child. even in a different framework with different transportation, such blatant and offensive negligence would still require the perpetrator to take accountability and face consequences for their actions that have resulted in a dead child. under the current system with the current legislative and transpotation frameworks this person recklessly endangered people to the most serious degree and is being let off scott free
The intersection requires pedestrians to wait, unprotected, in a dangerous location directly at the corner. The designer of the intersection recklessly endangered people to the most serious degree and is being let off scott free.
The vehicle that did the killing was an SUV. SUVs are large and heavy, with high blunt front ends. These are incredibly dangerous in a colission, far more likely to cause fatalities than modern passenger cars with a low nose that scoop under pedestrians in a colission. The car's designer, manufacturer, and vehicle regulator who allowed this dangerous design onto the streets recklessly endangered people to the most serious degree and are being let off scott free.
This court isn't even able to try most of those responsible.
None of these abaolve the driver of the responsibility of operating heavy machinery. All of the things you said are teue; that does not chamge the fact the driver was frossly negligent. Just because the responsibility cannot solely be placed on the driver does not mean they should face zero consequences, repercussions, and not have to accept any responsibility for their actions.
The judge seems to disagree with you. Like the judge, I have also read the statutes. Gross negligence, as far as the law is comcermed, is far greater than misreading one traffic signal one time.
The driver, as a presumably ordinary human, made an ordinary human mistake, that anyone could make. North American streets are designed so poorly that a single ordinary mistake results in fatalities.
Even if the court could grant the consequences you're asking for it would do nothing to make roads safer.
if you think that not paying attention to the road and a light at an intersection you're driving through at 47 km/h is normal then you need your license revoked. Missing a traffic signal once is missing a speed limit sign, its missing an exit, its accidentally parking on the wrong side of the road during street cleaning. It is not barreling through an intersection at full speed and not even braking until after you've already impacted something. This was not "one mistake" this was an intentional decision (distracted driving is not accodental) that has led to the death of a small child.