Driver Found Guilty of Careless Driving in Irena Ossola Crash

Another cyclist down. 
Round up the usual cartoons

 From yesterday's New Mexican: Driver gets unsupervised probation for striking bicyclist.

Fair enough. Having looked at the definitions before, this fits the bill, at least in the USA. The article claims some cyclists wanted a pound of flesh but there was no evidence of impairment or malice, which would be requirements to raise this to a criminal offense. Besides, this could have been a really good driver who had a really shitty day. Certainly Irena did. Plus, no amount of flogging the motorist would bring Irena back to full health as though this never happened. I guess this could go to the usual lawsuits.

No, this crash was the symptom. The disease is that we don't take driving seriously. With cars sold for their speed, horsepower, and number of distractive devices, not to mention the number of good Santa Fe residents who drive while yacking or texting on their phones, these crashes are inevitable and if you are not safely inside a two and a half ton vehicle (or even if you are) you are the equivalent of road kill. Even when caught, moving violations are trivial. So while it was bad enough that we had to wait months for the motorist to be charged with failure to yield or careless driving, it is far worse that this happened in the first place, and we expect it to happen. If driving was taken more seriously, we would have fewer of these ghastly incidents.

I have to say that I was particularly riveted to this one. "I didn't see him/her" was the same refrain offered by the motorist who turned left in front of my stepdad's motorcycle back in 1970, leaving him with two broken legs, a shattered kneecap, and a broken hand. He now gets around with two bionic, titanium knees. That was also what the motorist said when he turned left in front of me in 1979, leaving me with a TBI and having to take most of a year off  before starting a different dissertation topic because for months after that crash, I could not read a technical paper.

Vision Zero isn't just a good idea. Its the difference between life and death on the road for a lot of people.