Am I missing something here

[Bramble]

http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25...est=latestnews


So the guy that actually killed the kid via hit n run only gets 6 months for hit n run, but the mom gets 3 years for vehicular manslaughter. I didn't know you could vehicular manslaughter someone without a vehicle.

[lordlundar]

It's because the woman who instead of going to the nearest crosswalk and following proper safety rules when a pedestrian dealing with motor vehicles (ie stop, wait for acknowledgement and cross when it is safe) decided to intentionally take her child across four lanes of traffic thinking the traffic will stop on a dime for her.

It's tragic that she lost her son, but it was her own lack of judgement that was the cause of it. Yes, he certainly should have served more time and get rehabilitation, but even if it was someone else who was a responsible driver that accidentally hit her, she was the the source of the accident.

[Greenday]

http://www.parentdish.com/2011/07/25...est=latestnews


So the guy that actually killed the kid via hit n run only gets 6 months for hit n run, but the mom gets 3 years for vehicular manslaughter. I didn't know you could vehicular manslaughter someone without a vehicle.

She got her kid killed by forcing the kid to cross a dangerous highway and it was death by a vehicle. Since the death itself was accidental but still a result of her actions, vehicular manslaughter makes sense.

While a hit and run is messed up, the accident was more the pedestrians fault for recklessly running across a highway than some driver just doing their thing and driving.

[HYHYBT]

At least half the blame should go to the city for not having a crosswalk within a reasonable distance. Can you put the DOT in jail for three years?

[Rageaholic]

I don't think anyone should get jail time here.

The man was just in the wrong place in the wrong time. And while it was clearly the mothers fault, I think jail is too much for her. She made a mistake, a mistake that cost a life, but it sounds like a common mistake. It's an unfortunate situation, but I don't anyone deserves jail.

[Andara Bledin]

Nelson may not have been driving, but she still caused the death of her child with a vehicle. The conviction was for second degree vehicular homicide, reckless conduct, and failure to use a crosswalk. Second degree because she did not plan or intend to do it, although did not take reasonable precaution not to. I suspect that it was homicide as opposed to manslaughter because she carried or pulled the child into danger. The other two charges are fairly self-explanatory.

The three years that everybody is bandying about is the maximum time she can serve. Them giving her the maximum sentence is likely close to nil.

I've found the location of the accident. The map is centered on the bus stop. The nearest crosswalk is about .3 miles, or 1600 feet away. The typical adult walks that far in just over 5 minutes.

According to Nelson, she didn't want to take the extra 5-10 minutes to use a crosswalk because she didn't want to be out after dark, which means this took place during twilight and likely nearly full dark if ten minutes would have made that much difference. She claims that she didn't use the crosswalk because she would have to cross a "dark side street." Looking at the map, I'm not really sure what side street she's referring to. To the south, there are several driveways, one of which is paved, so might be considered a street if you didn't know where it went. To the north, which is possibly a shorter walk from the bus stop, there are actually several side streets that she would have to cross.

Guy, the man who hit them, only served 6 months in jail. He's on probation for the next five years. He has two previous hit and run convictions, both from the same day in 1999. This sentence was part of a plea deal, the rest of which we aren't privy to. It's possible that there's more to it than just the jail time and probation.

Article at Marietta Patch

Article at MailOnline

Nelson keeps claiming that she was not represented by a jury of her peers because none of them had ever had to rely on public transit. I have, at times, relied on the same myself, and regularly walked further than that every workday for the multi-stop journey to and from work. I have always gone that extra x00 feet to cross at a crosswalk and I regularly chastise anyone with young children that I catch jaywalking because I know how dangerous that is.

You don't have to be black or poor to realize that what she did was wrong and that she was, ultimately, the one primarily responsible for the death of her own son.

The man was just in the wrong place in the wrong time.

It's possible that Guy could have been prosecuted for DWI. He admitted to both having had a drink and having taken some type of pain killer sometime before driving. the prosecution didn't have that strong a case to go after him for either of those, since he ran, but they had him dead to rights on the hit and run, so they got him to accept the hit and run and take what sentence they offered so that everybody could avoid a legal battle with an iffy outcome.

Unfortunately, I can't find any information on hot it came to light that he was the one involved, so I don't know whether he turned himself in or had to be found.

^-.-^

[KnitShoni]

My question is, why was there no safe place to cross from the bus stop to where she needed to go? The only crosswalk was going in a completely different direction.

[Andara Bledin]

Unfortunately, for whatever reason the city hasn't seen fit to put any sort of control at that point on that road.

However, there are crosswalks about .3 miles in each direction from the entrance to her complex with bus stops near both. She didn't have to get off at nearest stop which she knew didn't have a crosswalk.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

I take back, then, my previous comment. What I'd heard before was that it was a mile away.

[bainsidhe]

I'm a little curious about missing details. Was this during rush hour? Was she waiting for a small break in traffic or for a larger break where no one was close? Had the van swerved in her direction or simply traveled along the lane with traffic flow?

I'm not approving of jaywalking, this was a preventable and sad tragedy. I just think there's missing details that might cause me to reconsider how much blame I put on the mother. People jaywalk all the time around here with total disregard for traffic. They walk across a red in front of fast-moving cars, expecting people to stop on a dime. And yes they do it with small children and strollers in tow. I have to drive carefully, because people jump into the road without looking. There have also been a few children killed in the last year due to improper supervision or chasing something into traffic.

If this woman just blindly walked into the way of traffic like I see people do here, then I blame her completely. If she was jaywalking, but took care to watch for traffic to clear and help her kids across, then I'm a little more sympathetic. Either way, I hope her sentence takes her children into consideration. How sad.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, I went and found a news report from the day of the accident. The time of the accident occurred at about 9:30 pm, well past dark, and well past the time people would be expecting a mother with three children, aged 4, 5, and 6, to be trying to dart across the street.

I find it interesting that they were struck in the northbound lanes, which are the first two lanes that they would have had to have crossed. How was it that she failed to see the van prior to moving into the street?

News report at 11Alive.com

She claimed on the Today Show that she chose to cross there so she, "Wouldn't have to be in the dark." That raises the question of why she didn't get home earlier, before it had gotten dark in the first place. 9:30 is awfully late to be rushing home from a shopping trip with three kids, the oldest being only 6.

Today Show episode on Hulu

^-.-^

[bainsidhe]

Here's another article I read with some more info:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...XBhZ2U-;_ylv=3

According to this article, they were waiting for traffic to clear when the boy followed another girl out into traffic. That sucks. It really sucks.

[Andara Bledin]

Interesting. According to that article, they were an hour late. But an hour earlier would have still been about half an hour past sunset. So her plan had still been to get home after dark.

Other reports state that her eldest was six, but this one states that she was nine. Also, that is the only article that I've read that mentions other pedestrians.

I have to correct a mistake I made in an earlier post: They had crossed the north/eastbound lanes successfully and it was the second half of the crossing that the accident took place.

^-.-^

[Andara Bledin]

And now everybody can stop with the HWFO. The sentence has been handed out and, as is typical in such cases, she will be serving no jail time at all. She has been given 1 year of probation and 40 hours of community service, which is pretty light, all things considered.

Hyperbolic article at MSNBC, byline listing Today.com contributor

She has also been offered a chance at a new trial. With all of the furor and hubbub over the whole ordeal, I find it unlikely that they'd be able to find an untainted jury anywhere in the nearby area. And while I agree that the results of her actions were terrible, she still deliberately chose those actions with full knowledge of the alternate choices available to her, and as such the conviction is fair.

^-.-^

[Pinecone]

In some areas jaywalking is far safer than crossing at a crosswalk.
At an intersection the pedestrian has to continuously monitor traffic from four directions; it simply isn't possible to do this adequately and one is always taking a real risk. When jaywalking far from an intersection only two directions need to be monitored and only the most egregious speeders have any hope of knocking you down. Since it's my life on the line and not any drivers, I reserve the right to take the safest course given the situation.

This applies where traffic laws are largely unenforced and so drivers routinely speed, ignore crosswalks and even traffic lights.