alt Hacker NewsThe reason that’s a news story is because the outcome is unusual.
When things are normal and happening all the time, they’re not reported as abnormal outcomes.
The world is a big place. Being able to think of a counter-example does not negate a general point.
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Is it? Laura Bush ran a stop sign and killed her friend. No charges. Caitlyn Jenner hit a car and pushed it into on coming traffic killed someone. No charges. I can keep going and going.
No, the reason that's a news story is because many people were upset about the accident, which killed an entire family of 4 while they took the kids to the zoo on their wedding anniversary. Even by the standards of auto wrecks it was heart wrenching. A lot of people felt the driver was negligent and deserved prison.
there are many[0] many[1] data points like this. even if individual ones seem like outliers, when there's this many outliers, it's like there's at least two distinct lines depicting consequences, one material and one not.
those who probably have exhausted all the various escape hatches built into the "vehicular manslaughter & mutilatino forgiveness program" worldwide by the automobile industry, may get a year or so in prison — usually extreme repeat offenders, high profile deaths, homicide cases, or drivers who were already criminals just having the charge thrown in.
most people who "slipped up" are just fined and forgotten, at the cost of global pedestrian safety.
[0]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china-insider/article/1856923/do-s...
[1]: https://gothamist.com/news/95-of-nyc-drivers-avoid-criminal-...
You are wrong. The easiest way to murder someone in America and get a slap on the wrist is to run them over in your car.
This was just in my local news 2 days ago; it doesn't seem that strange for California:
https://www.santamariasun.com/news-2/fatal-dui-case-closes-w...
Last year I was on the jury for someone who drove drunk, caused an accident, and fled the scene. They had multiple prior DUIs but still had their license.
[edit]
Some details from the story for those who don't want to click through:
An unlicensed driver drank, did some cocaine, drove on one of the more dangerous stretches of road in the area, crossed the centerline and killed someone. Probation.
No, it's actually fairly common in crashes between motor vehicles and pedestrians (or cyclists) to place most or all of the blame on the pedestrian.
When the Uber self-driving car struck and killed the pedestrian, not only did the internet peanut gallery largely blame the pedestrian for the first 24 hours or so after the death, but the local police force did as well for a couple of days. I rather suspect that without the national spotlight of being the first pedestrian killed by a self-driving car, the local police force would have been happy to absolve Uber and the driver of any liability.