Scruit

She was negligent enough for a civil prosecution, but apparently they don't believe she was negligent enough for a criminal prosecution

Had she been speeding too then she would likely have been charged. Sometimes an accident is just an accident though. To be criminally charged the negligence would have to be a substantial departure from the standard of driving that a normal reasonable person would maintain. Everybody makes mistakes, so a single minor driving offense was apparently not deemed by the prosecutor to be such a substantial departure.

@redkow97

A civil suit is almost gauranteed, and they will likely win with ease.

Intent is a dodgy area of law, as there are many subtle variations.

- If you kill someone completely by accident when there was no intent to do harm or anything illegal or stupid then it's an accident - nothing is charged.

Example: Someone runs out between two parked cars and you hit them with your car.

- If you kill someone while doing something stupid but without the intent to harm that person then it's likely to be charged as some form of involuntary manslaughter based upon negligent intent or reckless intent.

Example: You throw a rock in the air and it hits a passer-by and kills them.

- If you kill someone while doing something illegal but without the intent to harm that person then it's likely to be charged as some form of involuntary manslaughter based upon negligent intent or reckless intent.

Example: You fire a gun in the air and the bullet retains a low-arc ballistic trajectory and kills someone 3 miles away. (Thanks mythbusters)

(Negligence is failing to consider a risk that any normal reasonable person would be aware of. Recklessness is knowing that a risk exists but ignoring it)

- If you kill someone while intending to do them harm, but not intending to kill them, then it's going to likely be charged as voluntary manslaughter.

Example: You punch someone in the face and they fall and hit their head and die.

- If you kill someone while intending to kill them then it's murder.

Examle: You shoot someone with the intent to kill them and they die.

- If you kill someone whil intending to harm or kill another person then intent would be established by the doctrine of transferred malice. The malice intended for your intended victim is considered intent for the harm done to the deceased.

Example: You shoot at me, miss, and the bullet hits and kills a bystander.

Anyone who get a traffic ticket for violating a traffic law should be classified into intentional violators (I ran the stop sign because nobody was coming / I pulle dout from the side street because I wanted to get in front of the person on the main road) and accidental violators (I ran the stop sign because I didn't see it / I pulled out from the side street because I didn't see the person on the main road).

Intentional violators should lose their license for 7 days for ANY traffic offense. They should be given 14 days lead-up to the suspension to allow them to make preparations for having no license for 7 days, to ensure they can keep their jobs etc, ie take vacation or arrange rides / work-from home etc.

If the offense resulted in an accident then they should pay triple damages to the victim and there should be a 30 day suspension with no lead-time.

Accidental violators should be suspended immediately and given 30 days to get re-tested. As soon as they pass a re-test they can get their license back. If they don pass a re-test in 30 days they must start the licensing process over again with a fresh learner's packet.

If the violation resulted in an accident they should pay double damages, and they cannot re-test for the first 30 days.

Any person found driving under suspension should be jailed for 7 days. Dobled on all subsequent offenses. (2nd=14days, 3rd=28days etc)

Under Ohio law to be charged criminally in the death of another motorist there has to be more than a simple traffic violation. There has to be either a combination of minor offenses or at least one major offense (DUI etc). It can either be vehicular manslaughter (A misdemeanor: no intent to do harm, but more than one minor traffic offense) or vehicular homicide (A felony: Must prove intent, DUI / Street racing etc can be considered intent)

I suspect that state has a similar law.

Not than I'm saying it's ok for the lady to only get a $20 ticket... But western juducial systems punish the intent, not the result. How many of us can say we've never drifted over the double-yellow line, run a stop sign, run red light or exceeded the speed limit in a moment on inattention? (or intentionally?) Should you have gone to jail for that? The level of intent is the same regardless of if there is an accident - the only thing that is different is the result. Again, Western judicial systems punish the intent, not the result.

If someone runs into the road between parked cars and you hit/kill them then are you responsible for their death? It's a horrific result, but did you have the intent? No, you would not be charged. Western judicial systems punish the intent, not the result.

What if you intentionally drive your car at a crowd of people. You wanted to kill someone but they all got out of the way. The result is nobody hurt, but your intent was to kill. Should you be charged? Heck yeah... Western judicial systems punish the intent, not the result.

In this case there is no good outcome, only the least bad.

Flame suit on.

i did get the computer back. It was in good condition. Video was not on it as the lo-jack company erased it for legal BS reasons

Unerase it then. There's forensics tools out there that can do that unless they did a multiple-overwrite delete.

I'm a SQLServer DBA that dabbles with MySQL when Bill Gates is not watching.

(I was sat behind you in the MySQL class...)

My class had one wreck - the instructor was demonstrating cornering technique and lowsided when he hit a slick spot. The spot was invisible to the eye but you could feel it when you scriubbed the tarmac with your boots. That's the risk of doing the training in a parking lot where cars are parked pissing oil and coolant the rest of the week.

He wasn't hurt, but he was quite embarrased.

@bandit

Do you have any horror stories of people you've turned away for being late? Or have they been pretty good about it at your location.

I did the annual service for my bike a couple weekends ago. Oil/coolant/diff/valve clearances etc.

When I got back from my test ride I found the coolant hose had come loose and I'd dropped all my coolant on the road - and therefore ridden up to 10 miles on an un-cooled engine. The idiot light never came one because it measures the temp of the coolant - and there was none!

What I need is an aftermarket sensor an guage that will read the tmep of the engine and display the actual temp on a guage, not an idiot light.

Ideas?

(The engine was fine after cooling down overnight and getting fresh coolant. Phew!)

It's not a law, it's a precedent.

I'm not saying this to be a jerk, just pointing out the vast difference in a law system derived from Common law. Actually passing a law from the government does nothing but IMPLY a precedence... something isn't enforceable until a judge upholds or overturns it.

Why do I say all this? Nothing our politicians do will change the fact that all a judge has to do is rule against it and a precedence has been set.

A judge interprets and implements the laws that the legislature creates. If there is a grey area then the Judge uses his/her discretion and thereby sets a precedent.

Once a precedent is set it can be a binding or persuasive precedent. It's generally binding on subordinate courts (ie Appeals court precedents are binding on lower courts) and persuasive on all other courts (ie a California appeals ocurt ruling may be referenced in an Ohio trial to persuade the judge to rule in a similar way on a point of law, but the judge can rule against if he wants).

What a judge CANNOT do, is defy a stated law where they is no grey area. In this case there is no law stating that a radar gun is needed, nor is there one statinbg that it is not needed. So the judges substitute their opinions and set the precedent.

If the legislature subsequently passes a law clearly stating that a radar/laser/vascar etc is mandatory, then the precedent becomes moot and the new law stands.

A judge cannot overturn a law unless it's unconstitutional or in conflict with another law.

My law school was in the UK, not the US, so I may not be 100% on all of this, but I'm pretty sure I'm right on the mark.

I arrived as walk-in for the last MSF class of the season at Delaware one year. There were 6 total walk-ins waiting hopefully.

When the class time arrived they announced 3 open spots and did a lottery, ignoring arrival time (annoying, as I arrived first). Conicidentally, I got the first walk-in slot anyway.

As I was filling out the paperwork and the time was 5 mins past class start a guy arrived and said he had a reservation, but the instructor reminded him of the big red stamp on his paperwork that basically said "If you are one minute late your spot will be given to a walk-in". He persisted, arguing he'd been on the wait list for 6 months, and this was the last class of the year. (I had only heard about the MSF class earler that afternoon!) No sympathy from the instructor, he was asked to leave.

So I walked over and was going to give up my walk-in space so he could have his slot back. It was only fair, he'd been waiting etc. But then the guy got real nasty and belligerant, yelling a swearing at the instructor. They had to threaten calling the police on him before he left, causing a massive scene on the way out. While he was screaming and shouting I, of course, had no desire to identify myself as the man who took his spot in the class, so I kept my mouth shut. When he left I took my seat and the class started.

If the guy had been more level-headed about it he'd have got his space back. A lesson that he unfortunately gave himself no opportunity to learn.

367 feet? 10-15 flips? How fast was he going??

Revive old thread for my input...

I've been riding for seven years. My boy is 6 1/2 and starts grade school this August. I'll be riding to and from work as much as I can now that I won't have daycare duty any more. He will take the bus to school and I'll pick him up from latchhkey in the evenings.

I'll be picking him up on the bike under the following conditions;

- rear seat / cissy bar with arm rests.

- he's tall enough to reach factory pegs with ease

- weather good

- distance will be 2 miles on a mix of 25 and 55 mph roads

- full gear: helmet/leathers/boots

- he wants to do it, not because I want him to do it

If I was in charge:

1st DUI: 7 days jail + 2 year license suspension

2nd: 6 months jail + 5 year license suspension

3rd: 2 years jail + lifetime driving ban + forfeiture of car

4th: 10 years jail

5th: 20 years jail

In the UK your 1st DUI is 18mo ban, no work driving priviledges, then when you get your license back it has 11 points on it for 10 years. (12points=ban) If you so much as get caught by a speed camera within that 10 years you'll be banned again. Insurance is laughably expensive after that.

Agreed. If I accidentally kill someone because i was drunk' date=' or because I was texting, the outcome is still the same. I accidentally killed someone.[/quote']

If you kill someone while you're drunk, or texting, or with a cellphone on your ear etc then it was no "accident". The risk of a crash is so high that it's considered to be intentional, under the legal doctrine of negligent intent.

Accident = Simple mistake for someone who is otherwise driving safely

Negligence = Being unaware of a risk you are creating, whereas a normal person who be aware of it

Recklessness = Being aware of a risk, and taking that risk anyway

We are.

90 day suspended jail sentence. (ie no actual time in jail)

5 years of probation starting yesterday.

2 years of license suspension backdated to August 09 (accident date?). She gets her license back August 2011

$750 fine. When you add costs and probation fees she wound up paying just shy of $1700

She can drive to/from work. She is banned from cellphone use or posession wihle driving.

Cellphone use needs to be treated like drunk driving.

Tedesco's sentencing hearing was today. Waiting for the court record to update...

Court records indicate that sentencing was scheduled for May 6th, however the defendant's lawyer has filed a motion for a continuance.

That suggests to me that she's anticipating jail. The continuance may give her more time to prepare for incarceration. If it's just a fine or probation then what would be the value in putting off the sentencing?

I remember hearing about this guy that had "No Plate" on his plate. Well he kept getting tickets in the mail for citations states away where he never was. Come to find out when some cops would ticket a vehicle that didn't have plates on it, they would write " No Plate" where it asked for the plate number. They guy got new plates.

http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/noplate.asp

You remember correctly...

I have texted in the past, back when cellphones first had that ability. After about 3 of those I figured my life was worth more than whatever I was trying to say. The worst I'll do now is if I get a page I'll look at the subject line to see if it's a page from my security company - if so then I'll pull over to read it, otherwise I'll read it when I get to the next red light.

My rule is texting / reading texts and dialling only occur when my parking brake is on. Yes, I sometimes text at red lights, but I don't consider it dangreous if my car is not moving, and I keep a lookout for things like green lights and emergency vehicles. I will drop the phone on the passenger seat mid-text the moment the light changes, no question.

I use a handsfree for conversations, and it has voice dialling. I don't dial by hand unless it's a speed dial where I jut hold down one button.

I think we're all in for a shock. The guys with the statistics books are talking to the guys with the law books - and you're not going to like what they say... Hands-free conversations are only marginally less dangerous than hand-held conversations. The problem is that having a conversation with someone without the benefit of body language is very inefficient, and takes much more concentration than talking to someone in the car.

wrillo got it right - there are some people who are so bad at driving to begin with that throw in any distraction and you're signiing their death warrant. People who's concentration and thought processing abilities are good enough to begin with can easily absorb the additional brain load.

In some states you can search local court records online by license plate. The BMV does not give out private data from license plates to other private citizens without the plateholder's written permission or unless you qualify under on of the special exemptions. See BMV Form 1173 Part C.

http://publicsafety.ohio.gov/links/bmv1173.pdf

I obscure plates in my pics because there's plenty of crazy people out there that can use that information to track you down. Agreed, a PI is not supposed to give out that kind of information to the public - but people do a lot of things they shouldn't.

Yeah, people who drive past you can see your plate - but those people don't typically get to read all about your political affiliations, views on abortion and God and Obamacare etc. If you don't give them a reason to be pissed off at you then you can just drive on by into obscurity. But people tend to get pissed off on forums and the internet provides too many ways to track someone down.

The court record shows that Kristina Tedesco has been found GUILTY of Vehicular Manslaughter, a 2nd Degree Misdemeanor.

According to my reading of the public record:

- Tedesco entered a plea of No Contest to M2 Vehicular Manslaughter.

- She was then found Guilty by the judge.

- A Pre-Sentence Investigation has been ordered. The result of this investigation will be a report advising teh judge on jail/probation she should serve.

- Her driver's license appears to have been suspended for an undisclosed amount of time.

- I see no disposition at this time for the Fail-to-Yield citation. This may be a case of deferred adjudication as part of a plea deal. Or the record may be slow.

The pubic record does not appear to reflect when the PSI, and therefore the sentencing, is due. She could get probation and/or up to 90 days in jail.

Activity!!!

• 03/30/2010
  
  • CASE SET FOR A PLEA HEARING ON 04/05/2010 AT 2:00 PM
    

Looks like she copped a plea deal. I would assume that she would be sentenced as part of this hearing.

CASE SET FOR A PRE-TRIAL ON 03/29/2010 AT 1:00 PM

Yawn.

This is the case that i remembered from earlier this year. I know there is a post started already but I forget where it was but anyways here is the link to the court records show that the pretrial is not until January, It keeps getting postponed what the f**K, http://court.lebanonohio.gov/cgi-bin/mcaseno.cgi?num=0900928⊂=&pre=CRB&type=CR&acc=&showbd=

From what i remember she ran a stop sign while either texting or talking on her cell phone and killed a motorcyclist. I am just in disbelief.

I'm not aware she ran a stop sign. The version I heard was that she made a left turn into the path of the motorcycle while getting directions from a person she was talking to on a cellphone. I'm not aware of any suggestion that the rider's speed and/or the visibility down the road played any part - so it's just a question of whether the use of the phone makes her criminally responsible for the rider's death.

There was some mention of a toxicology report in the docket entries, however I'm not aware of any suggestion that either driver was under the influence of drink or drugs.

Of course there's always more to the story than the media portrays. And sometimes, less.