I just don’t understand drinking and driving

@firefly,

Quote:

The danger on the streets that night was the drunk driver who hit him and then left him on the street to die.

That is for sure, but there likely was another one. The chances that the drunk driver had a good reason to be on the streets at that hour is zero, the chance that the bicyclist had a good reason to be out is less than 1%. It is also likely that both were reckless. One guy paid with his life, the other one likely mostly will as well.

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@ehBeth,

Quote:

or maybe he was riding to or from work

Been there and done that............

An I had a perfectly good van at the time and I still rode in the AM to work 17 miles for the exercise and for the enjoyment of doing so.

No a cyclist had as must rights to use the roadways 24/7 as any other means of transportation and not be kill by a drunk driver while doing so.

The only caveat is that a bike and it rider is invisible at night unless lit up and he or she need to obey the traffic laws.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

The only caveat is that a bike and it rider is invisible at night unless lit up and he or she need to obey the traffic laws.

Did he have a light? Based upon the homeless that I come across this is far less than 50% likely.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

but there likely was another one...the chance that the bicyclist had a good reason to be out is less than 1%. It is also likely that both were reckless

And, you know this for a fact how?

Your prejudices regarding the homeless, or toward those who ride bikes in the middle of the night, constitute nothing more than your prejudices.

Or do you just irrationally believe that victims are always responsible for the harm done to them by others?

1 Reply

@firefly,

Quote:

And, you know this for a fact how?

50 years of life experience leads me to suspect, and to thus ask smart questions an lay odds on what the answers will be. If I had just fallen off the turnip truck I could truthfully say that I have no idea what the answer is and should thus wait for proof, but since I know more than that such claims would be false modesty.

Quote:

Or do you just irrationally believe that victims are always responsible for the harm done to them by others?

Were is the irrationality of believing that victims often have a hand in their travails? You might not believe this to be true, but I dont think that the evidence will support your claim. We bleach victims because we want to bleach them, we want to put them on a pedestal and build shrines to them.......we see what we want to see most of the time.

All I am asking for is a little reality checking and honesty, so that we might get a smidge closer to justice.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

If he was respectable, or trying to get to respectable, he would have been in one of the shelters by curfew instead of riding around the streets on is bike in the middle of the night making himself a danger to motorists.

dear hawkass...

you are an embarrassment.

I have been homeless and let me tell you something, being in a shelter at night isnt the piece of cake you think it is.
They have VERY few beds and generally pass up most people in favor of the older crowd or women with children. No complaint there frankly... they SHOULD be served first.

Not to mention, the respectable homeless ( as you call them) are NOT in shelters.
Why?
Because they are camped out some where else that gives them the freedom to come and go to day labors and places like that.
The 'respectable' homeless people are the ones you DO NOT see. They are NOT on the side of the road with a sign. They are in lines for work..

What YOU dont understand is that in a shelter, you can NOT leave until they say it is time to leave ... no matter if you work or not. They call this ' safety" .
If you arrive 'too late' .. heaven forbid its from WORKING.. you do not get in.
You are only allowed a few days stay a MONTH, sometimes in a YEAR at each shelter. It breaks down to about one night a week that you are allowed to sleep indoors if you balance your time just right between shelters.
Shelters are not permanent places to live. They give you a reprieve from sleeping outside. In general they do NOT provide a place to store your stuff, a place to actually LIVE or even an address to use.
They are a cot.. in a room .. with dozens of other people.. to sleep on, be woke up the next day, MAYBE get food, MAYBE get a shower.. but generally you are just kicked out.

Get a grip hawk. Shelters ARE NOT the answer to a ' self respecting' homeless person. Rolling Eyes

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@hawkeye10,

DAVID wrote:

Let me put it another way:
HOW do we know whether he is a bum or not??

hawkeye10 wrote:

If he was respectable,
or trying to get to respectable, he would have been in one of the shelters by curfew
instead of riding around the streets on is bike in the middle of the night . . .

I cannot accept your conclusion.
If he is a citizen, then he OWNS the street; it is his property
for him freely to use at any time of the day or nite.

He has no duty to enter a shelter,
to become respectable. He has no duty to abide by any curfew.
I deny that ANY PERSON has any such duty.

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

Just for this one time,David, I gave you a "thumbs up" for that post. Don't expect me to do that ever again. Laughing

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@Lustig Andrei,

I've a similar reaction, along with surprise that I agree with David.

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@OmSigDAVID,

absolutely agreed David.

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@shewolfnm,

Quote:

I have been homeless and let me tell you something, being in a shelter at night isnt the piece of cake you think it is

Please give the quote from me that left you with this mis-impression so that I may educate you on your error in comprehension.

Quote:

Get a grip hawk. Shelters ARE NOT the answer to a ' self respecting' homeless person

Actually in St Pete the last 100 or so, and the ones who refuse to behave in the shelter, get a mattress outside the shelter under a tarp and and porta-potty. If they are found sleeping elsewhere at night they are given a choice of going to jail or going to the shelter. The city is making life hard for the homeless on purpose, so that they will either get their **** together or get out of town. I think this is a good plan.

There is a high likelihood that this dead guy used to ride the streets at night and be a menace to motorists in order to stay awake and thus out of the clutches of the police. This still is in need of verification, but if true it changes how much I want to punish the drunk...this fools life (if I am right) is not worth anything close to a 30 year penalty.

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

In this case the guy went 1.5 blocks before calling
which has earned him two fleeing the scene charges, which is wrong.

It seems reasonable to me
to hold that he lived at the scene ( 1.5 blocks away )
and accordingly, he did not leave the scene of ax.

David

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

I think this is a good plan.

to a small extent , I agree

Being homeless is about 80% CHOICE.
Anyone can get out of that situation, they just have to have the drive to do so. Yup. Its hard. I should know. But it is not impossible. Most people choose to stay there because it is simpler. No personal responsibility.. hell.. NO responsibility AT ALL.

But then there are the VERY few who have no real choice .
V E R Y few..

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

50 years of life experience leads me to suspect, and to thus ask smart questions an lay odds on what the answers will be.

Then your 50 years of life experience should inform you that an extremely intoxicated driver cannot properly attend to the road in front of him, as well as check his rear view mirror and two side mirrors, and keep his car under control, all at the same time. If he had trouble driving, his attention might have been focused straight ahead, and he would not have seen the cyclist if he came from behind and tried to pass him. If he was driving erratically, the cyclist might have been trying to pass him and get away from him.
The driver never saw the cyclist until he hit his windshield-- that's why he thought he hit a pedestrian. It was the driver who wasn't aware of what was going on behind his car or on either side of his car--probably because he was too drunk to properly attend--he had just spent 6 hours in a bar.

Quote:

since I know more than that such claims would be false modesty.

Your grandiosity is no more a sufficient explanation than is your prejudices.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

The danger on the streets that night was the drunk driver who hit him and then left him on the street to die.

hawkeye10 wrote:

. . . The chances that the drunk driver had a good reason to be on the streets at that hour is zero,
the chance that the bicyclist had a good reason to be out is less than 1%.

The citizen is the sole competent, defining authority
qua what constitutes a "good reason" to use his own public real estate for its intended purpose of traveling.

David

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Did he have a light? Based upon the homeless that I come across this is far less than 50% likely.

I had no idea if he did or did not have the proper lights however we do know the driver was driving DUI and as a cyclist that use the roadways many thousands of miles a year day or night such people do not warm my heart to say the least.

Hawkeye it always amused me then drivers some driving cars that are worth less then my bike take the position that I should not be on the road that all the public had paid for.

The man homeless or not homeless have a right to used the public roadways with a bike 24/7 and a right not to be kill by some drunk while doing so.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

Hawkeye it always amused me then drivers some driving cars that are worth less then my bike take the position that I should not be on the road that all the public had paid for.

The man homeless or not homeless have a right to used the public roadways with a bike 24/7 and a right not to be kill by some drunk while doing so.

If there are two fools on the road who should not be there if they were being considerate of me then the one with the bigger vehicle is not automatically the one more wrong when they tangle with each other....getting dead does not mean you were the more innocent one. We should not be jumping to conclusions, but we have, because we love our victims.

1 Reply

@firefly,

Quote:

Then your 50 years of life experience should inform you that an extremely intoxicated driver

What was his BAC? You must know otherwise you would not be using the word "extremely"

Never mind, I forgot for a second who I was talking to.

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@firefly,

Quote:

The driver never saw the cyclist until he hit his windshield-- that's why he thought he hit a pedestrian. It was the driver who wasn't aware

A non drunk and alert driver might not had seen the cyclist if the cyclist in question was not lit up.

Being both a driver and a night cyclist I can feel some sympathy for a driver who hit a non-lit up cyclist at night but that does not weight all that greatly when you are talking about a drunk driver.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

If there are two fools on the road who should not be there if they were being considerate of me then the one with the bigger vehicle is not automatically the one more wrong when they tangle with each other

Only one of them was operating a motor vehicle, and the one with the motor vehicle has the greater legal responsibility regarding cyclists, pedestrians, and anyone else his motor vehicle might share the road with--and he was operating his vehicle illegally if he was drunk.

The driver shouldn't have been on the road at all. That we do know.

We have no reason, at all, to believe that the cyclist should not have been on the road, or that he acted at all recklessly, your particular prejudices not withstanding.

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I just don’t understand drinking and driving

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