Hang up and drive, you're not that important

This is a truly tragic and sickening story. A 25 year old man biking to work in Peoria, Illinois is struck and killed by a 19 year old female driver. Apparently the woman was too busy downloading ring tones to her cell phone to pay attention to her driving; she was so far off the road that she hit the bicyclist with the DRIVER'S side of the car. Inexcusable.

What makes this incident truly horrifying and unfair, and therefore fodder for this blog, is that the woman, who had 3 prior moving violations in her short driving career, was only charged with improper lane usage. Murdering this man only got her a six-month conditional discharge and a $1,000 fine.

From the article:

"State's Attorney Julia Rietz made the call not to lodge any more serious charge than improper lane usage against Stark, saying that the legal definition of recklessness, to sustain reckless homicide or reckless driving, did not fit her actions."

If that isn't reckless driving, I'd hate to see what is. My heart goes out to the man's family for this obvious miscarriage of justice. Bikers and pedestrians in Illinois, this is what your life is worth. Yet another example of how prosecutors can charge or not charge people with crimes based on fantasyland theories, and explains how guilty people such as this girl can skate, while innocent people get the hammer dropped to "make an example" of them for un-PC actions, such as the clear self-defense shooting in Coon Rapids, Minnesota the other day. The papers are reporting that the Anoka County prosecutor has not decided whether to pursue charges in that case, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were, as it was an "innocent teen having fun" that broke into the victim's house. If he is charged, however, I will be protesting there the next day.

As a personal aside somewhat related to this, my personal pet peeve is people that use cell phones whenever and wherever they please, even when they are asked not to. As an example, the YMCA where I work out has a 4 foot by 3 foot sign at the entrance restricting cell phones to the lobby, signs in the locker rooms restating this, and numerous signs on the workout floor. Yet every single day, there is some self-important yutz yammering away on the Stairmaster, berating an employee for some wrongdoing, or talking wuvey talk to their kids. When the staff reminds them of the policy, they inevitably get a sour look on their face, sigh exaggeratedly, and reluctantly shut their phone off. Some even go so far as to deny that they saw any signs in the first place.

You just know, though, that these people will be the first to sue the YMCA if some pervert takes their picture with a cell cam while they are changing, or complain when someone is taking too long on a weight machine because they are deep in conversation on the phone (the reasons the Y has this policy; they've already thrown out several pervs). People, if you're too important to turn off your phone for an hour, you're probably too important to work out, so you should maybe just not come.

I predict that when (not if) they allow cell phone use on airplanes, the first case of "air rage by cell" homicide will be a matter of weeks, if not days.