Distracted Drivers

Today is Tuesday of the April Twentieth. Four Twenty. I forget why 420 is a stoner thing, I used to have a hat and a couple shirts emblazoned with the logo for some reason that escapes me now. I am proud to say that I am now a bicycle rider again, I got my old chrome alloy bike up and running again with a new saddle and grips. Thats all it really needed but of course I am going to add more. The rear rim is toast although I am going to wait till I find a really nice rim and hubset onsale before I replace them. I've also always wanted suspension forks, not because I really need them but because I think they look cool. My forks and neck are for some reason, hot pink, and that color has been annoying me since I bought the bike. Of course since I will have the forks off I might as well replace the headset and neck while I'm there so this whole like will probably end up costing me close to five hundred bucks. If I waited till next year I could probably buy a better bike for double that but I like my Marin. I like steel bikes and I like older bikes.

Speaking of older, I just purchased two more items for my bike that shows how far I've come in terms of being responsible. The first is that I bought my first bike helmet since I was a BMX lad. Now I didn't buy one of those dorky aerodynamic jobbys but rather a skate type helmet. If I have to wear a helmet it might as well look cool. Against my better judgment I didn't buy a cool matte black one like I wanted but rather a khaki color because a motorcycle rider I hold in great esteem mentioned that its much easier for a drive to see a light colored head than a black one. Point taken there, you need everything you can get to have drivers notice you. I also picked up some reflective tape for my bike and helmet. When I bought my bike in ninety two I of course removed every safety reflective thingy that came with it. Oh, the joys of youth. Hopefully with my helmet and bike adorned with this tape I will be easier to see before someone mows me down with their Caddy.

Thats a nice segue into my next topic: distracted drivers. When I was driving before, I might have been legally drunk all of the time but I rarely if ever spoke on my cell phone for more than a minute or two while driving. I know that I can't drive as well when I am talking on the phone and it didn't take a Mythbusters episode to explain that. My mom and pops sat me down the other day and told me they had something serious to talk to me about. My first instinct was of course, to wonder what I had done and what drugs they had found and for the first time I could honestly think that there wasn't shit for me to be guilty of. What an awesome feeling but that was quickly squished by thoughts of cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, death, etc, etc. As it turns out my cousin's wife (cw) was "doing her nails" while driving and this distraction was deadly for a motorcycle rider who was at a stop sign. My cw was driving roughly forty miles an hour when she failed to see this woman which resulted in her flying over two hundred feet to her death. The rider was wearing a bright yellow jacket with reflective tape on the back and sleeves.

My cw is a very nice lady, I like her and not only because she married into my family. She married my cousin because she was pregnant and sixteen and four more children and many years of marriage followed. She is not an addict or alcoholic and is a member of good standing in the local church. Her kids are all awesome, educated, and responsible and she worked her ass off for many years to be a good provider. She then threw all of that history away when she decided that her nails needed a touch up and that she needed to do this when she was driving. When the responding officers questioned her she admitted that she was distracted and never saw that woman and her bike. She was written a ticket and allowed to keep her lisc but that wasn't the end of it. The DA presented my CW with a six count felony indictment and she could serve up to five years in jail. The problem is that vehicular manslaughter due to distracted driving is a gray legal area so the indictment is mostly driving to endanger, reckless driving, failure to stop, failure to yield, stuff like that. I never thought that I would see anyone in my family on a state indictment, well except perhaps myself and it was a sobering experience.

There has been a large amount of backlash about all of this spearheaded by the son of the dead mother. He has painted his nails black to bring attention to distracted driving and to the fact that many people view riding motorcycles as an invitation to death. They have attended and disrupted every hearing that my cw has been required to attend along with harassing phone calls, letters, and even protesting on the street they live. This terrible accident has made an impact on many lives and the only positive thing that can come out of this is that perhaps people will pay attention when they are driving. It was hard for me to read all of the hateful things that people had written about my cw but that is what happens with people are upset. She did something that she wasn't supposed to and a terrible price was paid due to her stupidity. I can't even begin to imagine the guilt and depression she is going thru and I wonder if her life will ever be the same. I am sure her husband and children are feeling the stress of this and wish it will all just go away. But it can't and their wife/mother may very well be spending a few years in the pokey.

From a defense perspective there are a couple of things very wrong with the way my cw has handled her affairs thus far. I am not a lawyer but I have seen the court system first hand and since this is my blog I can say whatever the fuck I want to. Anyway, her first lawyer was an influential but young attorney who had passed the bar roughly six months before she took over the defense. She said some incredibly stupid things to reporters rather than the regular "no comment". She tried and failed miserably to explain that what my cw has been thru is enough and that no further action should be taken. Her guilt and remorse is enough thank you very much and that she is sorry for what she has done. Yeah, shut the hell up. I don't think the DA cares very much what you have to say, save it for the courtroom.

They engaged the services of an attorney who actually has some courtroom experience but he has been less than successful thus far. He argued that since the law is a gray area when it comes to distracted driving that the indictment doesn't have merit and should be thrown out. The judge didn't agree with his summation and promptly threw the motion out and made plans to proceed with the arraignment. When the judge asked my cw if she was guilty or not she said "not guilty". I think this was a dumb move, she should have accepted responsibility for her actions and then asked for leniency from the court. She is guilty, she was distracted, failed to decrease her speed, failed to stop, and caused a death because of it. From reading the indictment it looks to me that she is guilty of all six of the charges and rather than fighting the wording like her lawyer is attempting now, she should have saved everybody much time and money and fessed up. This is, of course easy for me to say as admitting guilt would place six felonies on her record but then again who the fuck cares ? She is forty-seven, happily married, and a registered nurse. Its not like she is applying to be a law enforcement officer or some other field where a felony would prohibit you from pursing a career in that field. Folks with knowledge of the case and the presiding judge said that she would have probably get probation if she had admitted her guilt. Then again, if she can get a jury trial, she may have the charges dismissed at the end of the trial.

This whole situation totally sucks for my cousin and his family. I love them all and my cousin has worked his ass off his entire life and then to go thru something like this is terrible. Anything his wife is going thru he is as well and what totally boggles the mind are the actions of my cousins mother, my aunt. She is put simply, a fucking cunt. I don't say that often about someone and mean it but she has not bothered to visit her son or his family to offer support during this terrible time. She is pretending that nothing is wrong and if she isn't there in person then it won't exist in her twisted world. She asked my pop not to tell my brother and I and only told him because it was national news last May. She figures that since my cw is going to trial next month that my brother and I may hear about it and its better to hear it from my folks rather than on the internet or fox25 news. I just fail to see how ignoring a problem of this magnitude is better than dealing with it head on. I plan to write my cousin a letter of support once I find out what address I should send it to. People need to know that they are loved in times like this and its obvious that my aunt has some serious problems doing anything approaching support of her family.

My heart goes out to the family of the murdered woman. She was doing nothing wrong, was an experienced rider and was at the wrong place at the wrong time. I am sure there will be a civil suit brought my them against my cousin's wife and her insurance company but I think they are taking their time to see what the outcome of the trial will be. I think that a civil suit would make more sense than sending a forty seven year old lady to the clink for a couple of years but then again I am not a district attorney. Whatever happens, this is a tragedy for the woman who was killed and the distracted driver who killed her. My heart goes out to both families and it is my hope that they are able to move beyond all of the hate and resentment and learn to live their lives again.