Reckless cyclist charged with manslaughter for killing pedestrian in Cali

[MCL1981]

@mstone 22626 wrote:

Yeah, it’s completely different from the line of cars turning through an intersection in disregard of the walk signal and the pedestrians in the intersection that I see EVERY DAY. And it’s completely different than the excessive speed I see on the roads EVERY DAY. Because, you know, this guy was on a bike and must have reckless disregard, whereas the cars are just engaged in the normal kind of lawlessness that doesn’t matter because it’s normal.

So you’re saying that you see motorists intentionally mowing down pedestrians on a daily basis? It doesn’t sound your talking about the same thing I am.

[Mark Blacknell]

@MCL1981 22638 wrote:

So you’re saying that you see motorists intentionally mowing down pedestrians on a daily basis? It doesn’t sound your talking about the same thing I am.

No. MStone is saying exactly what they just said. Not what you rewrote it into.

[MCL1981]

Really? I’ve been saying throughout this that I am speaking of people who operate their two or four wheeled vehicles with reckless disregard for human life. I haven’t changed or re-written anything. For some reason, some of you are trying to downplay this by comparing it to a motorist who accidentally almost hits someone making a right turn on red. That is comparing apples to bananas.

@MCL1981 22533 wrote:

If a motorists blows a red light and mows down a pedestrian, then yes I think they would be charged in the same manner.

@MCL1981 22546 wrote:

That is not really the same. Not saying it’s an excuse. But that is not the same thing. A driver saying “screw the red light, I’m not stopping because I’m special” then mowing down the contents of the crosswalk would be the same thing. Making a right on red and not seeing the ped is stupid and inexcusable, but it isn’t a willful reckless act.

@MCL1981 22621 wrote:

…This idiot’s own account also that the situation is NOT the same as someone making a right on red and not seeing the pedestrian. This guy, and everyone else on two wheels that does this all the time, sees the peds, sees the red light, and decides to just plow through with reckless disregard….

[mstone]

@MCL1981 22644 wrote:

Really? I’ve been saying throughout this that I am speaking of people who operate their two or four wheeled vehicles with reckless disregard for human life. I haven’t changed or re-written anything. For some reason, some of you are trying to downplay this by comparing it to a motorist who accidentally almost hits someone making a right turn on red. That is comparing apples to bananas.

And some of us wonder why when the motorist kills someone while breaking the law it’s an “accident” and when a cyclist kills someone it’s “reckless”. Any time you’re careless while operating a multi-ton motorized vehicle you’re exhibiting a de facto “disregard for human life”, because it’s trivially easy to kill someone with a car (to the tune of more than 30,000 people — a good sized town — every single year). Attention, enforcement, and societal mores should be focused there, where there is a real problem. That real problem can be addressed primarily by making people understand that their “minor offenses” like turning right on red without stopping or looking anywhere but in the opposing vehicle lane, or routinely exceeding the speed limit, are an everyday “reckless disregard for human life” far more likely to kill someone than is an asshat on a bike.

[MCL1981]

Because you’re still not getting the difference. This guy saw the pedestrians “in his way” and made the conscious decision to simply mow them down. That is not an accident. That is intentional. And if someone in a car decided to willfully mow someone down, they would be charged the same.

You’re talking about a driver accidentally hitting a ped. Ok, there are a lot of circumstances to consider because every accident is different.

[mstone]

@MCL1981 22649 wrote:

Because you’re still not getting the difference. This guy saw the pedestrians “in his way” and made the conscious decision to simply mow them down.

And you don’t seem to get that his conscious decision to intentionally run into people exists in your own mind. He made a number of stupid decisions, mostly involving speed, and found himself in a place where he had no good options left. But in this society, making stupid decisions about speed seems to be ok as long as you’re didn’t have anything to drink that day. I haven’t seen any evidence that he set out from the top of the hill with the intent to hit someone, which is the bizarre distinction you’re trying to make.

[5555624]

@mstone 22653 wrote:

And you don’t seem to get that his conscious decision to intentionally run into people exists in your own mind.

Based on the rider’s own message, from sfist, “I couldn’t see a line through the crowd and I couldn’t stop, so I laid it down and just plowed through the crowded crosswalk in the least-populated place I could find” he did chose to run into people, just fewer people. I may be reading it wrong, but it seems to me he is saying there was no clear path and picked one with fewer people.

No one should be running red lights, regardless of what sort of vehicle they are operating.

[mstone]

@5555624 22668 wrote:

Based on the rider’s own message, from sfist, “I couldn’t see a line through the crowd and I couldn’t stop, so I laid it down and just plowed through the crowded crosswalk in the least-populated place I could find” he did chose to run into people, just fewer people. I may be reading it wrong, but it seems to me he is saying there was no clear path and picked one with fewer people.

The important point is the “I couldn’t stop”. In other words, his accumulated bad decisions left him with no options. But you can say that about just about any accident–better decisions leading up to the moment of impact could have altered the outcome. It’s a stretch to claim that the quote indicates that he deliberately hit someone (i.e., that he intended to hit someone that he could otherwise have avoided hitting). He wasn’t deliberate, he was dumb and went along with social norms that condone dangerous behavior. And the response to that problem isn’t to pick people essentially at random to “be examples”, it’s to consistently enforce laws targeted at correcting the most dangerous behavior. In this case, speed was almost certainly the primary factor–and if the response was to enforce the limit on everybody using that road, I’d be all for it. But given the enormous backlash that occurs any time any jurisdiction tries to crack down on speeding, that seems unlikely.

[pfunkallstar]

@MCL1981 22649 wrote:

Because you’re still not getting the difference. This guy saw the pedestrians “in his way” and made the conscious decision to simply mow them down. That is not an accident. That is intentional. And if someone in a car decided to willfully mow someone down, they would be charged the same.

You’re talking about a driver accidentally hitting a ped. Ok, there are a lot of circumstances to consider because every accident is different.

What got him into this dill of a pickle was a cavalcade of bad decisions, with his final one being the enormously difficult choice of deciding who to mow down for his own incompetence. Making a temporal argument about when this guy started making bad decisions is inconsequential. He was going to fast and decided to nail a turn anyways – that is dumb.

[JorgeGortex]

I’ll add that he could stop without hitting anyone in the crosswalk, but he decided not to take the painful way: he could have laid his big down and slid the pavement. Road rash for him, and senior citizen that would have gotten to see his family again. His choices were bad all the way, and he followed up by not taking the option he had.

[GuyContinental]

@JorgeGortex 22677 wrote:

I’ll add that he could stop without hitting anyone in the crosswalk, but he decided not to take the painful way: he could have laid his big down and slid the pavement. Road rash for him, and senior citizen that would have gotten to see his family again. His choices were bad all the way, and he followed up by not taking the option he had.

It sounds like that’s exactly what he did: “so I laid it down and just plowed through the crowded crosswalk”

There is definitely a disproportionate response to this issue because the guy was a cyclist- USDOT says that 12% of all vehicle-related fatalities are pedestrians; that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 4K peds (including 700+ cyclists) that were killed by cars last year. In many many cases vehicular or involuntary manslaughter charges were brought against the driver. Had this been a driver blowing through the red and hitting a ped the same manslaughter charges would have been filed but the media/community response would be essentially nil. I couldn’t find statistics but I remember reading that there were a dozen or so peds killed by cyclists (probably within that 4K since bikes are vehicles). Why the disproportionate response? Is it the novelty? General angst about cyclists?

My opinion, this self-centered tool was essentially identical to the the self-centered tool that right-hooked me yesterday on Fairfax- in too much of a hurry to think through the consequences. The difference is that if I was killed by that guy only my family, hopefully the police and perhaps you fine folks would have noticed.

[MCL1981]

Anything that is an usual situation is going to garner unusual media attention. It’s not surprising the media is all over this, but not all over all the other peds struck by reckless idiots in cars.

Knowingly riding faster than his ability to control the bike. Knowingly running through a traffic signal. Knowingly running through a crosswalk full of people. No attempt made at anytime to slow down, stop, or take evasive actions. Arrogant statements made by the moron after the incident admitting to all of this. This sounds like manslaughter handed to the DA on a golden platter.

California Penal Code 192(b) PC defines “involuntary manslaughter” as an unlawful killing that takes place

1. during the commission of an unlawful act (not amounting to a felony), or
2. during the commission of a lawful act which involves a high risk of death or great bodily harm that is committed without due caution or circumspection

Maybe rotting in jail is extreme. It’s not like he’s going to go around killing people left and right like other criminals. If the minimum sentence is some lengthy probation and restitution, I think that would be realistic.

[creadinger]

@MCL1981 22712 wrote:

Maybe rotting in jail is extreme. It’s not like he’s going to go around killing people left and right like other criminals. If the minimum sentence is some lengthy probation and restitution, I think that would be realistic.

Whew, at least you agree that an accident inflamed by stupidity resulting in someone’s death doesn’t deserve rotting in jail for eternity. I mean yes it deserves a stiff penalty and a manslaughter charge seems appropriate but the genius below was charged with 10 counts of manslaughter and was facing probation or up to 18 years in prison after mowing dozens of people down at a farmer’s market with a Buick. Given that he was 87 years old, I doubt he spent much time in prison, even though he killed 10 people.

http://articles.cnn.com/2004-01-05/justice/farmer.market.crash_1_movsha-hoffman-molok-ghoulian-brendon-esfahani?_s=PM:LAW

This happened in 2003, but I can’t find an update on what has happened to him since.

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