Who might buy the defense, “I was just driving down the road reading the newspaper and accidentally ran into and killed your mom”?

But, I am familiar with a group of guys who essentially believe it is impossible under any conditions for a driver to be at fault for a crash, unless they’re old, or operating below or not far enough in excess of the speed limit.

If a speeding driver should collide with the slower driver, it’s the fault of the slower driver for being in the way.

Yeah, they’re idiots, but they are under near constant bombardment by news reports of crashes “caused” by fog and ice containing multiple statements from officials asserting exactly that.

It’s wonderfully refreshing!

Keep it up everyone.

I think you are arguing against a point that no one is making. No one is suggesting that the intent was to kill somebody.

The problem with the term “accident” is that it has a general connotation of something that can’t be avoided. Tom Vanderbilt prefers the term “collision”.

There are basically three ways to classify a collision:

1) An accident, something that can’t reasonably be anticipated. Example: a tree falling and causing a driver to veer into another vehicle.

2) A collision that is the result of negligence. While the particular collision might not have been anticipated, drivers are required to take care that bad things (whatever they might be) don’t happen. Texting while driving is a clear failure to take the required care. This isn’t an “accident” because one can anticipate that something bad is likely to happen. A driver is required to avoid running over people and is also required to avoid situations where it is reasonable to assume somebody might get run over.

Example: the particular homicide being discussed here.

3) A collision that is intended. That is, if somebody plans to run into somebody, the intent to do so elevates the severity of the crime (eg. from homicide to murder).

It’s no different in the nuclear power industry, where “accident” is not prefered terminology.

“Human performance error” is used instead.

The FAA makes sure of this. Aviation crash reports almost always report “pilot error” as the cause, most commonly due to running out of fuel or flying into bad weather. We might just as well fault drivers for their bad choices to drive in conditions that lead to road icing or into fog.

People believe that when a plane crashes, someone is culpable — designers, flight crew, maintenance crew, traffic controllers, weather monitoring systems, terrorists, terrorist-minded security personnel, etc. This attitude — “there are no ‘plane accidents’” — has led to a situation where the most potentially dangerous form of transportation is actually the safest.

But somehow car crashes “just happen.” “It was an accident.” Y’know, just like knocking over a glass of milk.

Everything about Mr. Cellestine suggested he was a menace and incapable of safely driving a car, thus his suspended license. Simply getting behind the wheel that night was an intentionally hazardous act. That he no longer had a valid driver’s license was his signal not to drive, yet he disregarded it. Even by Mr. Moulton’s conservative definition of “accident” this was no accident.

I see Mr. Moulton’s point here — Mr. Cellestine had no intention of murdering anyone. But he committed the legal equivalent of pointing a gun in the air and pulling the trigger. This was Judge Bennett’s whole point. That bullet was gonna land somewhere, and it had the bad fortune of landing on a nice guy like Mr. Patterson.