What a sad story. An alleged drunk driver rear ends a car at a RR crossing pushing a senior couples car stopped at a guarded crossing into the path of a GO commuter Train. Both seniors killed If true I hope they give this guy the MAX. http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_13062.aspx
I hope the Canadian legal system isn't as soft as that of the USA. Otherwise, this tragedy will go virtually unpunished. :sad: Boxcab E50
The drunk driver COULD be charged with vehicular homicide, but I doubt it. The laws (no matter what country we're talking about) on drinking and driving are way too lenient. If you're caught driving drunk you should be charged whether you're involved in an accident or not. If there's no accident then it should be an automatic 'attempted homicide'. No messing around. Good thing I don't rewrite the laws. Then again, maybe that's not a good thing afterall. We need much stronger penalties. They're obviously not strong enough if people are still getting in their vehicles drunk. :angry::angry::angry::angry:
I know all about this... 25 years ago, a kid I grew up with, who'd become a drunken bum, was absolutely plastered. He got into his car, went out, and at 100+ mph, plowed head on into another friend of mine. The second car, completely sober, coming home from driving another fellow home after work. Died instantly. The nicest guy on earth, wife, family, hard working, would do anything for anyone, any time. And the drunk? A few cuts and bruises. A few months in jail. Back out, and still worthless. :thumbs_down: Boxcab E50
The worst part is watching the news tonight on this and this isn't the drivers first DUI. So there will probably be some pretty serious law coming down on him. It's no different then on Thursday here in town a guy visiting from Portugal drove around the gates and got nailed by a CP on the mainline. This is the 4th accident on the CP line between Cambridge and Milton(the go accident above) in the last month I believe.
I am an eye for an eye kind, and think that as soon as he is sober, he should be volunteered into the crash test dummy program, so we can gain much more accurate information than a mere plastic CTD can provide. This way, his test results might provide data that offers safer solutions for automobile construction.
:sad: This is one case where I don't blame the person getting hit by the train, as is my usual. I was involved in a head-on collision with a drunk when I was 18. I believe that it was only because of a combination of luck and that the car I was in was a large Ford Econoline van that I was not killed. I ended up in the hospital. They thought I had spinal damage so I was put on a backboard. My mom, who was driving, had wrist pain that was severe enough that they suspected a fracture. My sisters came out pretty well because neither saw the crash coming. I got a frontseat view of a 1970s Riviera hitting the grass median and then flying right up into our lane (literally airborne) crashing into my corner of the van. I really thought I had snuffed it when we came to a stop. As luck would have it, I came out with really bad bruises (from my shoulder strap on my seat belt) and a screwy upper back that was treated later by a chiropractor and pretty much taken care of. It was awful, even if we didn't get seriously injured or killed. I never did find out what happened to the other guys, although in this case they were injured worse than we were, judging from the relative level of paramedic activity between the two vehicles. At the time, I didn't care and I wanted them to suffer, but I have since forgiven them, though anonymously since I only know that the alleged driver's name ended in Torres and that he was driving a car that was registered to somebody else with expired Arizona tags and no insurance, and that we were in California on a trip and that there was some reason the other driver's identity had to be "protected." The paramedics that showed up were superb, and so were the hospital staff. The officers of the law that showed up were mostly good, although one of them kept trying to get me to somehow implicate my mother with questions aimed at entrapping me. The towing company guys were a bunch of vultures. I just decided I couldn't go on cursing someone anonymously and that the anger was going to be the most lasting damage from the accident, and that it just wasn't worth it. No amount of revenge, real or imagined, would give me the kind of relief that forgiveness has. My thoughts go out to the family of the victims, the train crew, and them emergency personnel that responded to the incident.
Anyone convicted of a DUI should be required to vist the morgue every time another death occurs from a DUI incident ... say within a 100 mile radius of their residents and FOR LIFE. That's as close to justice as I can think of without the actual life for a life thing, which for some reason our society frowns on.
