The incentives in the United States strongly favor pedestrian fatalities and reckless driving. It is insane that killing two people in a car accident is treated with a fine instead of ANY jail time. There’s a reason why fatalities on roadways continue to increase in the US. This is one of them.
back
5 comments
> insane that killing two people in a car accident is treated with a fine instead of ANY jail time
Which component of justice— retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation and reparation [1]—is served by jailing this person?
The only one I see is retribution. Given the families are pursuing damages, the reparation prerogative is better served with him out of jail (and not draining his assets fighting prison time).
[1] https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/crime-prevention-criminal-justi...
What was this guy doing while the vehicle he was supposed to be controlling ran a red light at more than twice the posted speed limit? The article is lacking on details here.
If he was, say, watching a movie on his phone, then he should go to jail to deter others from watching movies on their phones.
Also to keep him out of public for other's safety. Seems like him going to jail checks 3/5 at least.
So would revoking the driver's license.
Already failed to do due diligence and ensure system he was using was fully safe. Do you think removal of license would prevent anything? As far as I know not all cars yet have license readers before starting.
Removing a negligent driver’s license turns their next speeding ticket or red light camera into driving on a suspended or revoked license, which in some places carries the possibility of jail time.
The ticket for murdering two people didn’t carry jail time. Why would driving without a license?
So how well those DUI laws work? No one is driving under influence right?
Yes, I do.
Retribution and deterrence certainly would work with reasonable penalty let's say 10 years per murdered person. Also that sort of sentence would work for incapacitation. As clearly 23k is not high enough to stop many people from repeating this crime...
> say 10 years per murdered person
Sure. Nobody was murdered.
> clearly 23k is not high enough to stop many people from repeating this crime
That’s not the penalty. It’s a criminal conviction, the fine and probation. I don’t know the terms of the probation, but I assume it means he goes to jail for traffic infractions. Also, he’s going to pay a lot more than $23k given the civil case is ongoing.
Manslaughter is also a felony.
Even the language around automobiles is corrupted. Essentially all "accidents" aren't.
Owning and operating a multi-ton machine capable of travelling at high speed and rapidly accelerating is a huge responsibility. Being distracted isn't an accident, it's negligence. Not mechanically maintaining the vehicle is negligence. Not supervising your vehicle, even when you have some sort of digital aid enabled, is negligence. None of these are accidents.
Calling a system that is not fully self-driving "autopilot" while knowing exactly what the general public considers that term to mean is....something worse than negligence.
> Manslaughter is also a felony
The driver was convicted of a felony.
> Calling a system that is not fully self-driving "autopilot"...is....something worse than negligence
So we agree that the driver isn't, by default, subject to a minimum penalty of jail time.
I don't understand what you're arguing at this point.
Given the rates of vehicle deaths in the US, the penalties are clearly not high enough to act as a deterrent.
The "default" for this charge absolutely involves at least a year of jail time (that is, in fact, the defining difference between a felony and a misdemeanor), and the plea deal in this case is an affront to justice.
How often do people actually pay civil damages from these sorts of cases? It seems like there is a whole cottage industry around finding loopholes to avoid paying.
Do you expect Giuliani to pay a cent?
Don't you find 23k fine insanely low for in essence murdering two people? To me it is laughable amount. This sort of crime should have such a high fine that everyone including billionaires will be deterred to repeat it.
There are zero murdered persons in this case.
Deterrence: it would make a lot of inattentive drivers take driving a bit more seriously if jail time could be the result of irresponsibility behind the wheel.
Or give those who negligently kill with their cars a choice: serve the jail time for your negligent homicide, or give up your license for life. That would still have a deterrent effect while not being life-ruining (just life-inconveniencing)
Except that studies show over and over that increasing punishments doesn't work as a deterrence method. Increasing the likelihood of getting caught/facing punishment is far more effective than increasing the punishment. Unfortunately, in this case, you'd have to target behaviors contributing to pedestrian fatalities rather than the fatalities themselves since that's so infrequent and unlikely for a given driver to adjust their behavior.
> or give up your license for life
Is this not default? They have clearly proved that are not fit to participate in road traffic.
Deterrence clearly would be served from drivers predictably knowing that causing pedestrian fatalities would lead to jail time.
Really? You think that people are fine with killing pedestrians, but if only they might go to jail they wouldn't do that?
I think drivers are fine with causing a certain amount of risk to pedestrians. Strong, predictable penalties would lower the typical risk level drivers were willing to subject pedestrians to.
It’s not binary, it’s a distribution and I do believe you can alter that distribution.
It seems clear that incapacitation is served. And maybe deterrence. And quite possibly rehabilitation.
For a lot of people $23k is minimal disruption to their life.
Technically deterrence is provided because if they were in jail they would not be able kill people with their car.
That’s incapacitation. Depending on the driver’s record and whether he was negligently delegating control to the car (e.g. taking a nap), this prerogative would be variably satisfied. Facts and circumstances matter; this is why we have judges versus mobs.
Uh, deterrence
Forget jail time, why can’t we take away driver’s licenses from people who’ve proven they’re a danger to everyone around them? So often when we see fatalities it’ll turn out that the perp had tens of thousands in unpaid tickets.
I can't say I agree jail time is the solution. I would like to see lifetime driving prohibitions but somehow that's never on the table.
There will come a day when cars truly drive themselves and still get into accidents, and I’m willing to bet that car manufacturers will somehow have zero liability. They should be held accountable just like any driver would.
There were no pedestrian fatalities here.