Hit And Run Drivers Stops To Check Fender, Then Proceeds To Go Shopping.



It sounds like she's been through some stuff... It's a terrible thing that she did to that guy, and I hope he recovers and is able to get over the psych trauma. It's also too bad that she didn't get the help she obviously needed a long time before hand
 
It seems too many incidents like this involve perpetrators who can't cope with life's hardships, and victims who use public roads for "training" to be a coincidence.

I wounder if this could be an indication of the consequences of certain behavior patterns, or if these incidents are chosen by the media because disturbed people and athletes make better copy.
 
They shouldn't have even written "training", as it brings to mind the cyclist that drivers hate. Spandex-clad, running stop signs, riding in large groups taking up the whole road, etc. A simple "riding his bicycle" would have sufficed and not come with all the connotations.
 
Yes, consequences of erratic driving are killing your passengers, and hitting other people on the road.
Killing your child is more than the typical hardship; hitting a stationary bridge abutment doesn't seem to me to be something that should have been accepted as normal driving.

Bicycling in the US is still viewed more as a recreational/athletic activity more than transportation.
There probably are more training/recreational bicyclists than transportation bicyclists, so there are more of them to hit.

Collisions are more likely with impaired drivers, and not so common when both drivers and bicyclists are alert and sensible.

The media is looking for copy that sells, and journalists typically don't understand bicycling.
I remember a new story here about 10 years ago, "Bicyclist Riding in right lane Hit by Pickup, ticketed." On further investigation, the bicyclist had no lights or reflectors at 4am on a dark December morning, and was drunk.

Telling readers, "Use reflectors and lights in the dark and don't bicycle with BAC twice the legal limit" won't sell papers; telling readers traffic is scary and get off the road seemed to be what the writer (and readers) understood.
 
That woman looks like she has seen some hard times....
How terrible is that though.
Sometimes the flight or fight instinct takes over and people will just run without thinking.
Not an excuse, just some food for thought.

Like this lady from a town in my province. She gets pulled over, she hands the sop all her ID and takes a Breathalyzer. THEN she takes off! Like lady what were you thinking, they know EXACTLY who you are.
http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/2015/06/25/multiple-charges-for-speeding-driver
Sigh.
 
We live in a free and open society, and that means living among the uncaring, impaired, or inferior (among others). Unless you prefer some alternative with ongoing testing to make sure everyone is OK at any given time, this is a cost of freedom.

We all have 20/20 hindsight and can point at what seem like obvious signs that someone should have stepped in and "done something". But the signs aren't really that obvious (except in hindsight) and many appear in otherwise OK people, so looking for them would lead to a staggering ratio of false positives. As for stepping in to do something, who, when, and by what authority.

So we live with an imperfect situation and often the first reliable indicator of a problem is a fatal accident, just like the first sign of a serious (treatable) brain aneurism is stroke and death.

ON the bright side, these kinds of events are rare, which is what makes them "newsworthy" in the first place. Life here is pretty safe and countless people live their entire lives without any 1st or 2nd hand exposure to serious accidental trauma from any source.
 
I wouldn't mind taking the drivers test every 5 years or so. It might have an impact on safety and would be a small price to pay but It will never happen since such legislative changes would have a budgetary impact.
 
This thread reminds me of the news report last year. There was this truck that hit a biker who fell and was sprawled in the middle of the road. The truck stopped and then it backed up... and hit the rider again. Everything was caught on cctv and was shown on the news report. Fortunately, the rider was not heavily injured and the rider was able to evade the oncoming truck moving backwards. The rider was rescued by some motorists and the truck driver was apprehended.
 
While I am sympathetic to people who ahve suffered tragedies, a person is either safe to be on the road or not. Even if we assume she is just very unlucky and did nothing wrong that caused the accidents, if she is now incapable of not fleeing a scene where someone is seriously injured that alone makes it unsuitable for her to be on the road IMHO. And I find it odd that she has the calmness and presence of mind to check her vehicle for damage but not to call 911 for the person she hit. That seems like a very specific and self-serving sort of psychological impariment.
 
The word to describe this woman would be sociopath, I believe. There's definitely a dis-connect in reference to being able to take responsibility and/or feel empathy for another's suffering.

Either way knowing individuals like this are allowed to operate potentially lethal machinery is just a LITTLE scarey.