[OT] Cyclist charged with manslaughter after collision

From Oregon, via AP:

A bicyclist was charged with manslaughter after he ran through
a stop sign and struck and killed a 71-year-old woman, police
said Monday.

Jean Calder died at Good Samaritan Hospital after she was struck
Friday night as she crossed a street at an unmarked crosswalk,
Corvallis police Capt. Ron Noble said.

Christopher A. Lightning, 51, was charged with manslaughter and
reckless driving.

Full (but short) article at
http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/D8CIQME80.html

This sort of thing can happen, but fortunately it's very rare.
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Werehatrack wrote:
From Oregon, via AP:


A bicyclist was charged with manslaughter after he ran through
a stop sign and struck and killed a 71-year-old woman, police
said Monday.

Jean Calder died at Good Samaritan Hospital after she was struck
Friday night as she crossed a street at an unmarked crosswalk,
Corvallis police Capt. Ron Noble said.

Christopher A. Lightning, 51, was charged with manslaughter and
reckless driving.


Full (but short) article at
http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/D8CIQME80.html

This sort of thing can happen, but fortunately it's very rare.

99x, a radio station in Atlanta is notorious for hating cyclists. After
they heard about this, they went absolutely ape ****. "Get off your
toys and buy a car!" kind of ape ****. Needless to say, my buddies and
I at http://www.fastermustache.org are going to retaliate during
critical mass and with a separate event.

\\paul

--
Paul M. Hobson
Georgia Institute of Technology
..:change the words to numbers
if you want to reply to me:.

Werehatrack wrote:
From Oregon, via AP:

A bicyclist was charged with manslaughter after he ran through
a stop sign and struck and killed a 71-year-old woman, police
said Monday.

Jean Calder died at Good Samaritan Hospital after she was struck
Friday night as she crossed a street at an unmarked crosswalk,
Corvallis police Capt. Ron Noble said.

Christopher A. Lightning, 51, was charged with manslaughter and
reckless driving.

Full (but short) article at
http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/D8CIQME80.html

This sort of thing can happen, but fortunately it's very rare.
--

This is unfortunate for allot of people.

I have hit a pedestrian before. She was jay-walking, but I was going
too fast for conditions - - crowded sidewalks. She stepped out from
between two parked buses and BAM!

To think there are still people around that believe bicycles should
share the sidewalk with pedestrians. "She" probably only uses
crosswalks and looks both ways before crossing now. You could say we
both lived to benefit from the lesson.

These days, I slow down whenever there is allot of foot traffic.
Pedestrians can be as unpredictable as squirrels.

rsquared

Werehatrack wrote:
This sort of thing can happen, but fortunately it's very rare.

It blows my mind when I see bicyclists blowing through stop signs or traffic
lights; not even a California stop. Kids are the worst offenders but if no
one teaches them (parents/guardians) it doesn't surprise me. When I see
adults doing it ..... shrug I don't know.
--
Splat

"Werehatrack" wrote in message
...
From Oregon, via AP:

A bicyclist was charged with manslaughter after he ran
through
a stop sign and struck and killed a 71-year-old woman, police
said Monday.

Jean Calder died at Good Samaritan Hospital after she was
struck
Friday night as she crossed a street at an unmarked
crosswalk,
Corvallis police Capt. Ron Noble said.

Christopher A. Lightning, 51, was charged with manslaughter
and
reckless driving.

Full (but short) article at
http://www.breitbart.com/news/na/D8CIQME80.html

This sort of thing can happen, but fortunately it's very rare.

You should see a picture of the perpetrator, Christopher
Lightning -- looks like a ratty street person drug freak troll.
The local news has been plastering his ugly mug on the tube
nightly for the last few days. We have also been getting a lot
of coverage for all the bicycle deaths lately -- I think we are
up to eight or so in the last three or four months -- mostly hit
and run. The supposd battle between bicycles and automobiles has
been getting a tremendous amount of coverage in the media, and a
local rag even ran a full-front-page story on the issue. -- Jay
Beattie.

Werehatrack wrote:

From Oregon, via AP:

A bicyclist was charged with manslaughter after he ran through
a stop sign and struck and killed a 71-year-old woman, police
said Monday.

Jean Calder died at Good Samaritan Hospital after she was struck
Friday night as she crossed a street at an unmarked crosswalk,
Corvallis police Capt. Ron Noble said.

Christopher A. Lightning, 51, was charged with manslaughter and
reckless driving.

I am curious when was the last time a motorist was charged with
homicide for running a stop sign/red light and killing somebody.
Furthermore, if that has ever happened, I wonder what percentage of
such deaths have been prosecuted as homicides.

I see people driving with callous disregard for the lives of others
every day, whereas I very rarely see that from cyclists. This
manslaughter charge makes me think of the parable of the mote and the
beam.

Chalo Colina

Chalo wrote:
Werehatrack wrote:

From Oregon, via AP:


A bicyclist was charged with manslaughter after he ran through
a stop sign and struck and killed a 71-year-old woman, police
said Monday.

Jean Calder died at Good Samaritan Hospital after she was struck
Friday night as she crossed a street at an unmarked crosswalk,
Corvallis police Capt. Ron Noble said.

Christopher A. Lightning, 51, was charged with manslaughter and
reckless driving.


I am curious when was the last time a motorist was charged with
homicide for running a stop sign/red light and killing somebody.
Furthermore, if that has ever happened, I wonder what percentage of
such deaths have been prosecuted as homicides.

I see people driving with callous disregard for the lives of others
every day, whereas I very rarely see that from cyclists. This
manslaughter charge makes me think of the parable of the mote and the
beam.

Chalo Colina


I feel like I heard the word "vehicular" with "manslaughter," and
"homicide" a lot before I gave up watching TV for good.

--
Paul M. Hobson
Georgia Institute of Technology
..:change the words to numbers
if you want to reply to me:.

Paul Hobson wrote:

Chalo wrote:

I am curious when was the last time a motorist was charged with
homicide for running a stop sign/red light and killing somebody.
Furthermore, if that has ever happened, I wonder what percentage of
such deaths have been prosecuted as homicides.

I feel like I heard the word "vehicular" with "manslaughter," and
"homicide" a lot before I gave up watching TV for good.

I have often heard of vehicular homicide charges against drivers, but
almost without exception it has been consequent to a DWI crash rather
than ordinary dangerous or oblivious driving.

Many drivers, if not most, who kill with their cars seem to get off
with an administrative citation, or not even that.

My point is that when the police captain quoted in the article said, "A
car and a bicycle are both vehicles, and if they are operated in a way
that could be criminal, then charges are filed equally in both
situations," that he was implying a scenario that I've neither seen nor
heard of-- that a motorist who ran a stop sign and killed a ped would
face a homicide charge.

Chalo Colina

Jay Beattie wrote:
snip
You should see a picture of the perpetrator, Christopher
Lightning -- looks like a ratty street person drug freak troll.
The local news has been plastering his ugly mug on the tube
nightly for the last few days. We have also been getting a lot
of coverage for all the bicycle deaths lately -- I think we are
up to eight or so in the last three or four months -- mostly hit
and run. The supposd battle between bicycles and automobiles has
been getting a tremendous amount of coverage in the media, and a
local rag even ran a full-front-page story on the issue. -- Jay
Beattie.

Jay- is this the article you're talking about?
http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=6678

It's a pretty good article about treatment and recovery from traumatic
injury- from the patient's perspective. It's not something I want to go
through.

Jeff

You know what I wouldn't be surprised hearing about in the near future?
A drunk Cyclist charged with DWI. That's next. Mark