Baltimore Bishop to be charged with Manslaughter in Cyclist death

[KLizotte]

@Henry 104475 wrote:

Breaking news from the Baltimore Sun.

Also to be charged with DUI and Texting While Driving.

“Both the manslaughter and leaving the scene charge carry a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment.”

Wow, only 10 years?! I hope the judge can issue consecutive sentences if it comes to that.

[Greenbelt]

Bike Maryland and Bikemore statement:

https://www.bikemaryland.org/bike-maryland-and-bikemore-respond-to-states-attorney-press-conference

On the behalf of citizens in Baltimore and across the state, Bike Maryland and Bikemore appreciate the efforts of the Baltimore Police Department and State’s Attorney’s office in pursuing justice for Tom Palermo and his family. The death of a bicyclist in a car collision is a terrible event, but preventable if all road users slowed down and committed their full attention to the operation what can be a deadly weapon when wielded incorrectly.

When drivers choose to drive distracted and impaired, they are completely disregarding the value of the people around them. They choose that the cell phone call, the text message, or the time spent sobering up, is more valuable than the lives of the people they may kill or injure. This is a choice, and our society cannot tolerate it when they choose to drive impaired. Children buckled in the backseat, pedestrians crossing the crosswalk, and bicyclists using the bike lane are in peril when our community allows this to happen. We stand with the State’s Attorney’s office as they make a stand against distracted and negligent drivers.

We would like to remind everyone that when you hit-and-run you are choosing to deny that victim immediate care. Slow down; pay attention; and treat all vulnerable road users like you love them…because someone does.

Laurie found an old photo from Tour de Port in 2006 with Tom (2nd from left):
[IMG]https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10418949_773216869411699_3486237132956747205_n.jpg?oh=ad0d167c5784aef7fbfaa2b4cb2cdaab&oe=5538B14D&__gda__=1429248708_ef5145f9a28b5049370ab3f110ac6cac[/IMG]

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I’d settle for a year in jail considering that I’m used to cyclist deaths being reduced to the value of a ticket for running a stop sign.

[Greenbelt]

No drivers license for life, minimum. She had a .27 blood alcohol in a 2010 stop with shredded tire (wonder what she ran over that time?). Now a .22 while texting. Astonishing level of irresponsibility for the safety of others.

[PotomacCyclist]

Could she be any more irresponsible? Driving while heavily impaired, texting while driving, hit and run? I hope she does get a lengthy sentence, not so much out of revenge but for the protection of other people. She has a history of such behavior. If she is out on the streets, she will drink and text and drive again, and kill someone else. Maybe a lengthy sentence will also wake up other people and get them to stop texting while driving, or driving while drunk.

I know the big story this week is the terrorism situation in France, but I can’t help but think that since 9/11, car drivers have killed about half a million people in the U.S. That’s insane, if you think about it, that so many people consider this “the cost of a modern transportation system” or the “cost of doing business.” What?

[dplasters]

@Greenbelt 104492 wrote:

No drivers license for life, minimum. She had a .27 blood alcohol in a 2010 stop with shredded tire (wonder what she ran over that time?). Now a .22 while texting. Astonishing level of irresponsibility for the safety of others.

Based on the timeline from the press conference, she blew that .22 nearly an hour after the incident, if not more. She should certainly have her license revoked for life.

I’m a bit disturbed that Maryland has such a low cap for DUI resulting in a homicide.

[Terpfan]

It’s too bad the sentencing guidelines are so weak. This womam represets a significant danger to everyone.

[cyclingfool]

I would have liked to have thought that someone of the cloth would have had more respect for the sanctity of human life.

[mattotoole]

@Greenbelt 104492 wrote:

No drivers license for life, minimum. She had a .27 blood alcohol in a 2010 stop with shredded tire (wonder what she ran over that time?). Now a .22 while texting. Astonishing level of irresponsibility for the safety of others.

A high percentage of these cyclist fatalities seem to be caused by a small group of the very worst drivers, with multiple DUIs, etc. Many have had their points up to the limit for several years. Or they’ve lost their license, but have it back because of concessions by the courts and DMV.

There’s talk that the next leap in road safety will come from keeping this small group of the worst drivers off the road. I’d love to see some seirous research into this. And some serious steps taken.

Mandatory ignition interlock devices (IIDs) are a great start, and they’re probably coming to Virginia soon. The average DUI perpetrator supposedly drives drunk 80 times before getting caught.

[mstone]

I feel differently–drivers like to pretend that drunks are the only problem, and focusing so much on that ignores other problems. Even if we got rid of drinks entirely, people would still be getting killed by bad drivers. But the way things are now, a driver is pretty much safe from prosecution as long as he’s sober. What needs to happen is a focus on safe driving across the board rather than letting drivers continue to routinely drive unsafely in the belief that it’s those other people that are actually a problem.

[Starduster]

…and I am hoping the Episcopal Church will consider *justice* more important than “protecting its image (& one of its own)”.

[PotomacCyclist]

@mattotoole 104583 wrote:

A high percentage of these cyclist fatalities seem to be caused by a small group of the very worst drivers, with multiple DUIs, etc. Many have had their points up to the limit for several years. Or they’ve lost their license, but have it back because of concessions by the courts and DMV.

There’s talk that the next leap in road safety will come from keeping this small group of the worst drivers off the road. I’d love to see some seirous research into this. And some serious steps taken.

Mandatory ignition interlock devices (IIDs) are a great start, and they’re probably coming to Virginia soon. The average DUI perpetrator supposedly drives drunk 80 times before getting caught.

I would support getting these people off the roads or at least out of their cars. (If they stumble through a crosswalk on foot, they aren’t nearly as likely to endanger so many other people, although they could still cause a driver to crash or swerve and hit someone else.)

But I agree that drunk drivers are only part of the problem. In 2012, drunk drivers killed 10,322 people in the U.S. An astonishing number, but it was 31% of all traffic-related deaths. That means that more than two-thirds of deaths would still occur even if zero tolerance for drunk driving could somehow be instituted.

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

When a driver is responsible for causing a death or multiple deaths (including deaths of other drivers, passengers in the same car or the driver of the car), there is more than one possible contributing factor. In this case, the bishop is thought to have been texting while driving. (They should be able to establish this through phone records. Match up the timestamp of her phone texts at the time of the crash. It might be more difficult to establish guilt if she had been looking at a webpage at that moment but not sending texts. But maybe data records can track that too.) Texting is very widespread these days. It’s a dangerous practice whether or not the driver is drunk. Texting means that you are driving blind.

Then there are all the drivers who exceed the speed limit, and not just those who inch 1 or 2 mph above the speed limit. Many other drivers run red lights. This is clearly established with red-light camera data. That data can be flawed in terms of specific individual drivers, but it does establish overall patterns. Plus anyone can stand at an intersection and observe red-light running throughout the day. When I walk up to an intersection, odds are about 1 in 4 in my experience that the first driver to reach the red light will run it. Either they are speeding up to beat the yellow light, which is no justification, or they just feel like there’s a 3-second zone where they can run a red light just after it turns red. Both of these practices are very common.

All of these causes of traffic-related deaths are avoidable, in almost every case. There is no need to drive drunk. There is no need to be exceeding the speed limit by 10, 15, 20 or even 50 mph (as Jayson Werth did last summer). There is no need to run red lights. There is no need to be texting or web browsing while driving. Yet all of these are common, in the DC area and across the U.S. (and abroad). I imagine there might be the rare case where an otherwise “law-abiding” driver is speeding to get away from a killer, but that is likely to be exceedingly rare. (It’s probably much more common on television dramas and action movies.)

We should continue to focus on all forms of illegal and aggressive behavior that poses a significant risk to others. (It’s true that many cyclists run STOP signs and red lights, and pedestrians jaywalk, but it’s rare for those practices to harm others. It’s simply not a major threat to public health and safety. Drivers run over 33,000 people a year in the U.S. The only stat I’ve seen on cyclist-caused deaths is a one-line statement that there are 5 or 6 such deaths a year. Any avoidable death is tragic, but 33,000 is far, far worse than 5 or 6.)

[rcannon100]

Episcopal bishop indicted on 13 charges, including homicide, in cyclist’s death WaPo

[CaseyKane50]

A story about Tom Palermo and his “unfinished ride“.

[Tim Kelley]

Pleading Not Guilty:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/episcopal-bishop-pleads-not-guilty-in-hit-and-run-death-of-bicyclist/2015/04/02/5ad6c23a-d890-11e4-b3f2-607bd612aeac_story.html?postshare=231427991087547

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