Texting driver kills 13 people

[GagHalfrunt]

Pneumatic finishing nailgun.

Okay, we can get get creative, leave a table full of various tools and let each person use anything they like. Knives, nailguns, hungry wolverines, whatever.

 

[allisolm]

Isn't it obvious? We as a society have decided that killing people while texting isn't a big deal.

Driver gets four day prison sentence for killing a man:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ntence-4-days-in-jail/?utm_term=.1d9599fb6944

No prison at all for this idiot who ignored pleas to stop texting immediately before killing a 10 year old girl and her father:
http://www.startribune.com/little-falls-teen-to-be-sentenced-in-distracted-driving-deaths/370998721/

And this driver got 5 years for killing someone while texting. http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2012...-years-for-causing-fatal-crash-while-texting/

And this teen got 2 years and lost his license for 15 years after being convicted of motor vehicle homicide by texting. http://abcnews.go.com/US/aaron-deveau-found-guilty-landmark-texting-driving-case/story?id=16508694

By your logic, my links show we as a society have decided that killing people while texting is a big deal.

 

[madoka]

Okay, we can get get creative, leave a table full of various tools and let each person use anything they like. Knives, nailguns, hungry wolverines, whatever.

Did you ever watch the Korean movie "Lady Vengeance?"

 

[madoka]

And this driver got 5 years for killing someone while texting. http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2012...-years-for-causing-fatal-crash-while-texting/

And this teen got 2 years and lost his license for 15 years after being convicted of motor vehicle homicide by texting. http://abcnews.go.com/US/aaron-deveau-found-guilty-landmark-texting-driving-case/story?id=16508694

By your logic, my links show we as a society have decided that killing people while texting is a big deal.

2-5 years for killing someone is freakin' light! With good behavior, you're out in 1-2 years FOR TAKING SOMEONE'S LIFE. What other crime lets you kill someone and get a slap on the wrist like that?

People get 14 years for shining a laser at a helicopter:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/trave...er-sentence-14-years-california-alpa/6330661/

 

[IEC]

2-5 years for killing someone is freakin' light! With good behavior, you're out in 1-2 years FOR TAKING SOMEONE'S LIFE. What other crime lets you kill someone and get a slap on the wrist like that?

I'm inclined to agree. I put someone in prison for 40+ years as a juror (jury decides punishment in TX, conviction on this particular charge = no possibility of parole or reduction). That was the light/merciful end of what the jury thought he should get given the charge and the overwhelming evidence presented during the trial. No one was killed. No drugs or weapons were involved. The perp will likely die in prison.

A few years is nothing compared to 13 families who have just had their loved ones taken away from them in a senseless, totally avoidable vehicular manslaughter.

 

[allisolm]

2-5 years for killing someone is freakin' light! With good behavior, you're out in 1-2 years FOR TAKING SOMEONE'S LIFE. What other crime lets you kill someone and get a slap on the wrist like that?

Of course it's light, but many people have received much lesser sentences (less than a year) after being convicted of manslaughter. Because some have gotten off lightly doesn't mean that society as a whole considers the taking of a life not a big deal. Just as many examples can be found of sentences way in excess of 5 years.

 

[K1052]

Remember this next time the nay-sayers attack automated vehicles when one is involved in an accident.
The difference is the automation is either not at fault, or will learn from its mistake.

People think about negligent manslaughter as largely a cost of doing business wrt driving cars. The mentality that since you have the illusion of control a certain level of carnage is acceptable pervades a lot of arguments against automation. If the number of people who died in cars yearly died on planes commercial air travel would collapse.

 

[DarthKyrie]

I am glad my state, New Hampshire, outlawed using a cell phone at all while driving. We have digital signs along the highways that remind people of it as well.

 

[Moonbeam]

Jesus Christ, you feel guilty about your sexual attraction to other people.... the very instinct that ensures humanity does not go extinct. Name one other animal that feels bad about enjoying sex. This is all just an aftereffect of the thousands of years of cultural shaming of sex.

As the kid of a missionary I have a unique perspective on this. The stone age tribes my parents were trying to convert in the Amazon basin absolutely did NOT have these hangups. Societies evolved these hangups. It served some kind of purpose that promoted human civilization but I am unsure exactly what.

Jeepers, I heard him say that he would be more judgmental, a bad place to go, but he can't because he sees himself as imperfect, but allowed himself one grace, that his faults haven't killed other people. Now you come along and tell him what an idiot he is to feel guilty about something that if he didn't feel guilty about he probably wouldn't be fixated on. I think you mean to be helpful by pointing out that sex isn't evil but I don't think the way to do that is to call him stupid for feeling that way if he does. That would sort of like saying you worry your daughter might become a Muslim and having folk say its because you are a worthless father. I think he was on the right path by even suggesting the possibility he might have some issue publicly. Nobody fixes or works on an issue they can't first acknowledge may be there.

Your parents engaged in the spreading of cultural shame and tried and may have succeeded in passing that onto you. You are saying be ashamed to be ashamed. I don't think it works like that. I think you need to see that as long as we can't consciously identify how we because who we are we are prisoners of that conditioning and that is a form of sleep or automatonism. We blame but the blame is illogically unsustainable. You might as well criticize rocks. Christ showed you the way. You have to die to resentment of the cross. You have to bear your cross with dignity and forgiveness. We have all been eaten by the machine and there is nothing but gears at which we can point our fingers. The only thing that we can be open to is a willingness to consider that a change in our perspective may be possible.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

I am glad my state, New Hampshire, outlawed using a cell phone at all while driving. We have digital signs along the highways that remind people of it as well.

My state officially banned it too. But punishments are light and enforcement is weak. It's something like a $150 fine and even if you kill somebody there are no specific penalties for distracted driving. The typical charge is something like negligent homicide with a motor vehicle and the prison time is under a year. Nobody is afraid of getting caught and because of that the overall effect of the law is bordering on zero. I see as many distracted drivers now as I did before it was banned. It's like a ritual, get in car, start engine, pull into traffic, pull out phone.

 

[sdifox]

Okay, we can get get creative, leave a table full of various tools and let each person use anything they like. Knives, nailguns, hungry wolverines, whatever.

The difference is you don't bleed as much with the tiny nails. So the perp lives longer.

 

[Fingolfin269]

This should be dealt with the same as drinking and driving.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

The difference is you don't bleed as much with the tiny nails. So the perp lives longer.

Okay, I can respect that. How about alternate plan? Back to scalpels. Carve out a tiny piece, fill wound with salt, bandage it up.

 

[Sheep221]

He screwed up badly, he will never get over the guilt of 13 people dying just because he was well...texting.
But I see more problems here as well:
Texting not banned by law, WTF?
Ability to drive large trucks without commercial license, so every fucktard will buy one.
Using mini-vans as buses which have no safety of their own, sorry this is the worst screw up here, judging from photos I wouldn't sit in that thing even when being alone inside on a parking lot. Transporting passengers in vans? Van is not a bus just because someone put sofa in it.

 

[JMC2000]

He screwed up badly, he will never get over the guilt of 13 people dying just because he was well...texting.
But I see more problems here as well:
Texting not banned by law, WTF?
Ability to drive large trucks without commercial license, so every fucktard will buy one.
Using mini-vans as buses which have no safety of their own, sorry this is the worst screw up here, judging from photos I wouldn't sit in that thing even when being alone inside on a parking lot. Transporting passengers in vans? Van is not a bus just because someone put sofa in it.

#1: As to truck size; in most states (pretty much all of them), a vehicle has to have a gross weight (combined or single) of greater than 26,000lb or a gross axle weight greater than 8,000lb (not 100% sure on the axle weight) to require a CDL.

#2: From the video I saw of the accident. It was a full-size conversion van, which are routinely used to transport up to 15 people(without requiring a CDL). Models such as: Chevy-GMC Express/Savanna, Dodge/Mercedes/Freightliner/International Sprinter/Ram Van, Ford Econoline and Transit are nowhere close to buses, but are regularly used.

As to texting while driving not being banned in Texas... Well, it's Texas.

 

[senseamp]

Everything is dumber in Texas.

 

[mxnerd]

It's sad and the driver should be sued to the extreme. But no law can prevent this.

Most of the passengers did not wear seatbelts. The causalities won't be this high if they did.

 

[dank69]

See, the problem is that common sense ain't all that common.

Common sense would tell you that anything that takes your attention from the road, for even a brief amount of time, is dangerous; yet hundreds, if not thousands of people do this every single time they get behind the wheel, everyday.

Every day I'm out on the road in my truck, the number of people I see texting while driving (several at highway speeds) disgusts me.

Even without distractions, 80% of the population is not qualified to operate a motor vehicle. The funny thing is, there only needs to be one test that could weed out that 80%. Have every driver go to 4 stop signs and tell them as they approach each one to take a right. If they don't instantly know when it is safe to turn at even one of the 4 stops, turn off the engine you are done.

 

[JMC2000]

Even without distractions, 80% of the population is not qualified to operate a motor vehicle. The funny thing is, there only needs to be one test that could weed out that 80%. Have every driver go to 4 stop signs and tell them as they approach each one to take a right. If they don't instantly know when it is safe to turn at even one of the 4 stops, turn off the engine you are done.

"Go to the stop sign and make a right turn." Is one of the steps on a lot of road tests. Seriously, I wasn't even told "when it is safe to do so" when I went for my regular DL.

A majority of people pass because there is someone in the vehicle with them that can fail them, so they'll try their damnedest to not screw up.

Most Americans do their best driving when they're getting or reinstating their license, as for the rest of the time: "It's only a problem if I'm caught."

 

[dank69]

"Go to the stop sign and make a right turn." Is one of the steps on a lot of road tests. Seriously, I wasn't even told "when it is safe to do so" when I went for my regular DL.

A majority of people pass because there is someone in the vehicle with them that can fail them, so they'll try their damnedest to not screw up.

Most Americans do their best driving when they're getting or reinstating their license, as for the rest of the time: "It's only a problem if I'm caught."

I'm not talking about driving skill when paying attention and trying hard. I'm talking about a simple IQ test and 100 IQ is not nearly enough to safely operate a vehicle, yet anyone with 80 IQ and 20/100 vision can get a license.

 

[who?]

People are wired to be optimistic and think that we can handle it and then something like this happens.

 

[JMC2000]

I'm not talking about driving skill when paying attention and trying hard. I'm talking about a simple IQ test and 100 IQ is not nearly enough to safely operate a vehicle, yet anyone with 80 IQ and 20/100 vision can get a license.

That's mainly from the way people view driving; even though it is a licensed privilege, people treat it as a God-given right.

Look at how a lot of people view traffic enforcement as "revenue generation", and that officers are "making quotas".

As long as people see it that way, a true IQ test, will never be implemented, because chicken-shit politicians at municipal and State levels are afraid of the idiots removing them.


Each day I start my truck to run loads, I hope that a miracle as happened, and that people have actually learned to drive in a safe and respectful manner; only for it to be obliterated by someone who almost sideswiped me due to looking at their phone, or the idiot that doesn't how to properly merge into a highway.

 

[Viper GTS]

In much of the USA having a car is basically required if you are going to have a job, and by extension simply live. Significantly raising driving standards sounds great in theory but how do you propose we deal with the fallout of suddenly removing half the population's ability to earn a living, participate in their community, etc? They're simply going to drive without a license, much like everyone else who can't get one.

Autonomous vehicles are a far more likely solution than revamping an entire society to make car free living a reality.

Viper GTS

 

[ch33zw1z]

Making licensing more restrictive will never happen, it will hurt both government (loss of tax revenue) and energy corporations (less oil sales). Not a chance.

What should happen, IMO

1. Criminal charges for drunk driving, everytime. Jail time, everytime.

2. Tougher consequences on phone use.

I'm not sure an IQ will help much, I see some pretty stupid shut on the road....and most of the time it's a car you wouldn't think it's a low IQ person driving

Cell phone use pales in comparison to drunk driving, which we as a society have shown we will accept with sometimes little consequence. So I don't expect much to change.

I prefer voice to text if I'm sending a message, phone is hooked up through cars bluetooth, easy peasy

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I am glad my state, New Hampshire, outlawed using a cell phone at all while driving. We have digital signs along the highways that remind people of it as well.

Same here in IL, however, that means fuck-all to the drivers as I will always see someone on their phone on my commute to work and home. Literally, always. Handsfree driving law here, and again, it means fuck-all to drivers, not all, but I'd venture a guess to somewhere around 40% or more.