‘A Culture of Accountability on Our Roads’
A bill in Maryland looks to fill that “big gaping hole” between felony manslaughter and a minor traffic ticket:
Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons, D-Montgomery, the bill’s chief sponsor, called it “cosmically absurd” that a driver can speed, run a red light and kill someone and not face criminal prosecution because his actions did not meet the high standard required to prove vehicular manslaughter. He said his measure would not criminalize “ordinary negligence,” such as taking your eyes off the road momentarily, but would be targeted at more serious deviations from reasonable care.
The legislation will create “a culture of accountability on our roads,” Simmons said.
Hear, hear.
This parallels a similar move in Washington State.
A bill to be introduced in the state legislature would make it a crime to kill or seriously injure a person with a car while violating a traffic law—a response to the killing of City Council aide Tatsuo Nakata by driver Ephraim Schwartz, who struck Nakata in a crosswalk while talking on his cell phone.
“The problem we’re trying to address is that there’s a big gap between a civil infraction”—a traffic ticket—”and a felony,” says City Attorney Tom Carr, who’s pushing for the legislation. “It’s my view that if you speed regularly through school zones and 99 percent of the time nothing happens, but one percent of the time you seriously injure somebody, that should be more serious” than a mere traffic violation, Carr says.
![[del.icio.us]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[MySpace]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Slashdot]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/slashdot.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 9:17 am and is filed under Traffic Enforcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
| 
January 29th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Oh, I sincerely hope that becomes a national trend. Here in Tucson, we have decided it must be the officially sanctioned way to murder someone: hit them with your car, pay a small fine. Piece of cake.
January 29th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Yay progress. Sad it took the killing of a City Council aide to get it (I knew that would lead to something good for protection of pedestrians through enforcement). More sad that all the killings and injuring of pedestrians over the years went unnoticed and unpunished with only minor traffic violation tickets.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Motorcyclists have also traditionally been big-time victims of this. Kill a biker because you turned left into him while you were talking on the phone and not watching the road? Pay a small fine and be on your way.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:05 am
DWS (Driving While Sober) is the universal defense. As long as there’s no alcohol in your blood, all is forgiven.
We don’t really have traffic laws anymore, only traffic “suggestions”.
(Maybe that’s a bit over-dramatic, but probably not far from reality.)