Driving a Deadly Weapon Requires Following the Law

Food for Thought

Why is it that every time we get behind the wheel of a powerful automobile weighing thousands of pounds we think it gives us the individual right to break the laws that were put in place to protect everyone? Last week’s avoidable vehicular killing of a young girl by an unlicensed driver in the Rose Garden neighborhood may be the latest example, but is by no means an isolated incident, as statistics from across the country show.

I don’t know why the driver in question was not licensed, and perhaps that is the least of her problems at this point, but it does show a callous disregard for the law that was the initiator of the chain of violations that ended in the death of an innocent victim. Of course, the very same thing could and does happen to a licensed driver, but one wonders if this particular driver’s lack of knowledge of the rules of the road may have contributed to the accident. However, given my experience of driving these days after nearly 40 years as a licensed driver, the state seems to be giving licenses to anyone who walks into a DMV office and hands over the fee.

The fact that this accident took place in a school zone is not surprising. My observation is that these areas are where you see some of the worst moving vehicle violations. I frequently see lines of minivans and giant SUVs in front of schools delaying traffic, making illegal left turns and U-turns, running stop signs and red lights, and then, having gathered their load of kids, speeding away, all while the parent-drivers mindlessly natter away on cell phones. (And try driving the limit of 25 mph on a four-lane street around a school zone when children are present and watch cars zoom around you at 40 or more.)

Dangerous driving is now endemic in our society. Stand on any busy corner in the city for 30 minutes—Market and Santa Clara Streets for example—and watch countless drivers run red lights, zoom through the intersection at freeway speeds, fail to stop at a red before turning right, and turn through a crosswalk full of pedestrians. I see this every day, often right in front of an SJPD squad car that does nothing. Drive the 65-mph speed limit on any freeway (in the right lane of course) and watch every other car turn into a blur as they pass you at 75-100 mph, even trucks and cars pulling trailers that are supposed to be going 55. (Do you ever see anyone with a trailer pulled over for speeding?) I won’t even mention the multitudes that tailgate, change lanes without signaling, and pass on the right. Try and go for a leisurely weekend spin at the 30-40 mph speed limit on a narrow road in the Santa Cruz Mountains and watch some idiot who wants to go 5 mph faster tailgate you for miles, or an even bigger idiot on a hot motorcycle zip around you on a blind corner at 75 (I have seen a couple of those splattered on Highway 9—a definite no-go road on weekends).

Many violations occur when drivers are stupidly distracted by cell phones, or even worse, text messaging. However, violators are just as often not operating any electronic communications device (at least one that can be seen). It will be interesting to see if the new law that bans drivers from using handheld cell phones from July 1 will have an effect. Unfortunately, the law was written before text messaging was an issue so that will now be addressed in further legislation. But I can’t believe how many times I see someone driving along with their eyes cast downward, texting away. Being a licensed driver won’t keep them from killing someone or themselves while distracted.

So what’s the answer? Most everyone I talk to recognizes the widespread lawlessness on the roads, but nobody knows what to do about it. More SJPD or CHP won’t change anything if the ones we have now don’t do anything as it is when they observe violations. Will making an example of the driver who killed the little girl last week by throwing the book at her wake people up? I fear not. We still don’t know all of the details of this completely avoidable accident, but, under the circumstances and being that she was willfully unlicensed, the driver must be prosecuted for every violation that can be shown to have occurred and sentenced accordingly, to the fullest extent of the law. Let’s hope this tragic incident makes other law-breaking drivers think twice about what they are doing in the future.

29 Comments

  1. The lack of traffic enforcement in SJ is a failure of our elected officials. The more housing they add pushes the limits of city services and traffic enforcement has been a victim of this.
    A school near me has drivers blasting through way above the speed limit everyday. I have never seen SJPD stop a driver. There is one of those “Your Speed Is” signs permanently installed. As you drive by it is supposed to show how fast you are going. The sign has not operated for many months—until last this week—the first week that school is not in session for the summer. That helps a lot.
    Until we start yelling at City Hall and telling them that the Street Smarts program and its cute little signs are not the answer, the speeding will continue, and unfortunately the injuries and deaths will also continue.
    It will take more than signs and a few speed bumps to fix the problems that we have our elected officials to thank for.

  2. The woman who struck and killed the little girl should be put to death at San Quentin State Prison.  The State of California should execute her by lethal injection.

  3. The biggest scofflaws who don’t signal when turning or changing lanes—COPS.  And they’re also on cells a lot while driving.  Does the new law apply to them?  They “text” on their on board computers, as well.

    The hands free law applies only to talking on the phone, not dialing.  Dialing is a far bigger distraction than talking.  When we dial, most people look down @ the phone.  While talking, most people look forward.  Yet, after July 1 you can still dial (and text) with impunity.

    Stepped up enforcement slowed down Hwy 17 traffic, and greatly reduced accidents.  It’ll work anywhere…until they move to other locations.

  4. As I have previously griped about on this blog, a number of years ago the police department, in an effort to appease one of this community’s least credible big mouths (Rick Callender), began tracking the race of drivers stopped by its police officers. The immediate reaction? A near forty percent drop in car stop totals. In other words, hundreds of thousands fewer car stops from one year to the next. Hundreds of thousands fewer speeders, red light runners, right-of-way violators, etc, confronted, lectured, cited, or warned by our police department.

    How many people do you know who would ignore the very real possibility of being branded a racist for simply doing their jobs effectively? Our officers have even been criticized by the public for enforcing the law on streets and in neighborhoods where they encounter too many unlicensed illegals.

    When preparing to stop a violator, cops can seldom determine the race of the occupants. Then-chief Lansdowne knew that, and knew it that his self-aggrandizing stunt would put his officers in a bind; but he didn’t care, because he, like today’s chief, care only about their reputations and their ability to get second and third chief’s jobs, and earn second and third generous pensions.

    Despite the complaints of police union officials and published articles in their trade paper, not a single council person, community leader, or media representative has ever addressed the negative impact to public safety delivered by this idiotic concession to local race merchants. The reason? When it comes to race or illegal immigration, it has become better to look the other way—even if it means letting our children be run down.

  5. We still don’t know all of the details of this completely avoidable accident,

    Exactly, yet the Internet know-it-alls already know who is responsible.

    Based on the always right (sarcasm) Mercury News, this is what we do know.

    First, we know that the driver did not have a license.  If indeed she does not have a license then charge her the maximum that the law allows for driving without a license.  As a side note, if she is an illegal immigrant then deportation is appropriate, whether she was at fault or not.

    Second, we know the victim rode her bicycle off the sidewalk into the street. 

    Third, we know the victim was struck by the vehicle

    But, there are important details that we do not know.

    We do not know if the bicyclist rode off the sidewalk into the path of the already turning vehicle.

    Nor do we know if the bicyclist was already in the intersection, and the vehicle then made the turn which resulted in striking the victim.

    Until we know the answers to those two items, and maybe other items, nobody, except for the Internet know-it-alls, can make any type of judgment as to who was at fault in this situation.

    One thing this tragedy does point out is why bicycles are not allowed to ride on the sidewalk, and why there is a law for children to wear helmets.

  6. #7- Honorable Judge Scalia,
    Very well said. Too bad a child had to die before anyone paid attention to the seriousness of problems around this issue. I think the driver has already been sentenced to a life of deep regret and pain that will follow her all the days of her life. No amount of judical punishment can compare to that.

    Jack,
    We seem to be living in a very self-entitlement, self-absorbed time. People just don’t seem to respect anything outside their own little worlds. I think some of the answer is strict enforcement by the Police, along with schools getting the parents to stop breaking the law. I live near a school and I can tell you it is just a matter of time before a child is killed. Parents dropping off and picking up their kids park wherever the hell they want, including right under the tiny City posted “No Parking” sign covered by tree limbs the City rarely trims. They grab their kids and speed off like bats outta hell. I don’t think the concept of 25 miles per hour ever registers in their pea brains.

    #2- Ann is correct. Our officials don’t seem to care unless someone dies! Do you know how many times, and for how many years neighbors and myself have complained to Chirco’s Office about this? All we get is sent to one department after another. No follow up, no nothing.

    And Frustrated Finfan is absolutely correct. Police Officers have become lax in their enforcement because they are tired of being portrayed as racist criminals profiling people of color. Sit in your car, and look at the driver in front of you. Can you honestly tell their race? I can’t! Their seat covers their head for Gods sake!

    We are reaping what we sow. We attack the Police for everything from doing their job by arresting, ticketing, or tasing a combative nut, to gathering in a ” known crime,” neighborhood parking lot to eat dinner (Oh my God what a crime!) write reports in their cars so they can quickly respond to a call, to complaining that too many of them are downtown harassing club patrons. I guess no one realizes that Chief Davis is taking his orders from the Mayor and Council, and other higher ups. God forbid we blame anyone but the Police here! Let’s just ignore the concept of personal accountability and point our fingers elsewhere.

  7. I’ll answer Jack’s initial question even further, based on eyewitness experience:

    Too many people I’ve seen mistake driving for a video game: wreck or break traffic laws, no consequences, no $$$ paid out of our wallet.  As long as we’re not caught and no one gets hurt, it’s all good.  This philosophy is summed up in an Archie comic book I read as a kid when Veronica gets her first car and mentions, “I don’t drive the car – I aim it.”  It tends to be forgotten that there’s no reset button or power-up code when you wreck or get caught breaking the law in a real automobile. 

    The recent tragedy with the girl documented here is another example of how we as a people are in such a hurry to Get There NOW, we leave our common sense and humanity at home.  Witness a hit-and-run accident in Hartford, CT as an example:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZatIZFdM_s

    (WARNING: not for the weak-hearted)

    The best thing to do about all this is to remember several things:

    * Your signature on a driver’s license is acceptance of a responsibility to obey the law and be mindful of others on the road.
    * Never allow an unlicensed driver to drive your automobile – for ANY reason.
    * If you have children, make sure they obey the law.  Set the example for them by driving the posted speed limit when driving.  Bicycle a lot?  Make sure you and your kids wear a helmet.  Even though with the recent accident a helmet would not have mattered, there is NO excuse for not having a helmet whenever you ride a bicycle.

    It is useless to demand responsibility from our elected officials when, as a people, we fail to take responsibility for ourselves.

  8. Some good points made by people.

    Certainly drivers today are worse than in the past. Seeing someone come to a stop at a stop sign now qualifies as a rare event. I’ve even had people honk at me when I do this.

    I have no idea whether the unlicensed driver in this case was an illegal immigrant or not. But the inevitable result of denying licenses to illegal immigrants is that they will drive without a license. I’ve never understood why so many people consider this preferable to having them take a driving test, but such is our political reality.

    If—and again, I don’t know—this person was an illegal immigrant, the most likely reason for her to be turning into that particular street was that she was employed by someone living in one of those very large houses. Do proponents of punishing illegal immigrants to the max think that the employer has any responsibility?

    That question is all supposition until the facts emerge.

    I don’t know whether proximity to the school was an element in this tragedy.

    I agree with Kathleen that traffic around schools is a nightmare. A large number of parents insist on dropping off and picking up their child individually, causing massive tie-ups with much unsafe driving. I have witnessed several near misses and a narrowly averted fistfight.

    I give credit to the schools for trying to impose some order on this chaos, but it is a thankless task.

    Some options used in other countries are not available here, for example the “walking school bus”. This is where children walk to school in groups under the supervision of a parent volunteer.

    If an accident happened, in this country the school could considered liable because it organized the program. Whereas in the present system, if a child is hit by a car driven by another parent, the school is not liable.

    Even if children don’t live that close to the school, they could walk to safer and more dispersed pickup points.

    It might be worthwhile considering making some legal changes to allow schools more options in these matters.

  9. I’ll start.

    Though we are a no fault state . . . whichever driver was using hisher phone without hands-free device in an accident is at fault and is (insurance) liable for all vehicular and commercial damage from the accident. Period.

  10. I’d like your input on this article because I seriously do not get it!

    What does driving without a license and killing a little girl have to do with being an illegal immigrant living in this country for 20 years? (Yes, I said 20 years!) Her daughter went to the same school as the child she killed. Same school, here illegally? How do illegals register their kids in school legally and not get reported?

    What is so complicated about deporting an illegal immigrant when they have killed a child or even an adult, and why is there a policy protecting illegal immigrants from being reported to immigration officials in the first damn place?

    This woman broke numerous laws didn’t she? Laws like coming here illegally, driving without a license, using a fake ID to work, and God knows what else. I just truly do not get this. So does this mean because she was here illegally that she does not come under our laws and that she cannot be tried in a court of law for manslaughter? Where is the justice for this little girl and her family in a broken system that protects the offender not the victim?

    http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_9645252

  11. Kathleen #15

    These are good questions for which there are no easy answers.

    Since the illegal-alien mother/driver has been here for 20 years, it’s safe to assume that her child was born here and is therefore a US citizen and, under the law, has the right to be registered at a public school.

    However, I believe that the mother could be considered a “flight risk” by the authorities and detained in custody as such until charges are brought before the court and she enters a plea. The judge can then decide how to proceed with further detention or releasing her on bail. Perhaps JohnMichael or one our legal bloggers can elaborate on that.

    I assume that since she is unlicensed, she has no insurance, but in this case, it would probably depend on the owner of the vehicle that can’t be registered and licensed without insurance. (Is it registered and who is the owner? The Merc should be all over this story with these and other answers.)

    I do agree that anyone stopped, cited or arrested for breaking the law that is found to be here illegally should be immediately deported once thay have paid their legal debt to society and the family of the victim. That will be unfortunate for the families, but the parents should have considered the possible consequences before coming here as illegals and showing a long-term disregard for our laws.

  12. Wonder what it would take to set up sporatic road block checks as is sometimes done to check for drunk drivers?  A drive could and should be checked for a valid license, officer calling it in to check for validity and also if the person is insured.  This, of course, would probably lead to a charge of racist profiling, but gee, there is probably one prominent demographic here.

    Glad you asked for JM’s imput.  His I trust. I’d be leary to hear what Justice Kennedy might say after his recent majority opinion.

  13. It might help if there were a no-stopping zone around schools for the hour before and the hour after school.  That way, nobody drives to school, and we stop running over each others children.

    I don’t see another way out of it.  You can put a nice person in a 4000 pund metal box, and they just change.  It’s as though everyone else in the world becomes less valuable when you’re in that shell.

  14. If anyone’s interested, here is an article on the little girl and her family, the date and time of her funeral, and notification that our WONDERFUL San Jose Police Department is still collecting donations for this poor family.

    http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9645287

    Jack,
    I don’t know if you have an answer but don’t you have to have ID etc. to register your kids in school? Aren’t Social Security Numbers required too?

    Wonder Woman,
    “Wonder what it would take to set up sporatic road block checks as is sometimes done to check for drunk drivers?  A drive could and should be checked for a valid license, officer calling it in to check for validity and also if the person is insured.” 

    What an excellent, excellent suggestion! It would be awesome if they put one of those right near the school in the morning and afternoon. Think of how many lives it might save.

  15. This could have happened at any school site in any city in this county. Unrealistic to have a cop on every corner. God nor Government could have prevented a reckless driver from hitting someone.

  16. Wonder Woman, welcome back! Kathleen, great points.
      Our major problem is a shortage of not only police officers in San Jose but,“a shortage of Enforcement officers”,EO`s are the big problem here in San Jose.
        We need to convince the Mayor,City Council and City Manager that this is important.“Core Values” as seen by the public, not as seen by “special interest”.There is a “not for profit” downtown that will argue with us and say,”$30million for golf cource repairs is more important.Just think how many police officers we could hire with the $30 million.
      The downtown “not for profit” thatv supports sporting events and golf cources is a Paid lobbiest group.What`s worse the City pays this group large sums of money to lobby the City,hard to believe but, it`s true.
      Kathleen and Wonder Woman, this has to do with our Core Values!

  17. Let’s a deep breath for a moment. Illegals are not the only people involved in tragic accidents. Seems a SCC Deputy was involved in tragic accident recently that involved a couple of bicyclist being killed. He has been charged and now the legal system goes to work. The woman who hit the child has not been charged with anything yet—so lets not convict yet.
    We should separate the two issues. There is little, if any, traffic enforcement in San Jose. That is a problem whether you are legal or illegal, licensed or unlicensed.
    Until there is some kind of agreement on how to handle illegal immigration we will have illegals here. As long as they are here they will need to work, to drive, etc. As long as our legislators prevent illegals from obtaining drivers licenses you will have illegals driving without a license. It’s a vicious circle and politics are allowing the problem(s) to grow.
    At the risk of being naive, what if our politicians actually tried to solve these problems instead of using them to their political advantage? It would be quite a different world, wouldn’t it?

  18. More information was published in yesterday’s Resident.

    Parents picking up children regularly make left turns into Selborn.

    There is no crossing guard posted at Selborn.

  19. Richard,  #20
    When you talk about Core Values, how does that translate into “Core Services” as budgeted and managed by a large city?  Is that like health and safety vs. quality of life,  vs. capital expenditures vs. special events and subsidies?
     
    When the funding and budgeting process is complicated, segmented and in some ways silo-like, some spending decisions can become disconnected from that alignment.

    It would be nice if the budget structure and subsequent management process were easier for the public to understand and support; it might simplify the process and aid in reducing the deficit.  Mayor Reed has taken huge step in this direction with the open budget development process.  But more work lies ahead to identify, prioritize and align the city’s values, and simplify the budget.

    David D.

  20. Anyone else notice that the little girl wasn’t even buried before her death was being harvested by the licenses-for-illegals crowd? It seems that what those claiming the compassionate high-ground are really compassionate about is their own political agenda.

    There appears to be the assumption that all that prevented the driver of that car from being a licensed and insured driver was her illegal status. This is an assumption that I will not make, nor should anyone else, as it equates the right to apply with the right to drive. Besides the fact that some eligible people never apply for a license (just as they don’t file with the IRS), according to the DMV two-thirds of all applicants fail the written test, and one-third of those who pass it fail the driving test. In addition, a sizable percentage of drivers who obtain a license ultimately lose it due to poor driving, failure to pay fines, failure to maintain insurance, or inability to pass the test for renewal. Thus it is quite possible that had the driver been eligible to apply she still would’ve been unlicensed and still would’ve been driving in violation of the law without hesitation (after all, she was that day there to pick up a child who, being of middle school-age, should’ve been able to walk or take county transit home).

    It will be interesting to learn what, if any, contribution to the severity of this accident might have been due to the poor driving skills and/or slow reaction time of an inept immigrant—something we’ve all seen or suffered from, firsthand. If the child was dragged any distance following impact, something that would indicate the driver failing to brake immediately, then you can assume that the driver would’ve had a real problem passing the driving test, no matter what the law.

    from http://www.dmv.ca.gov/about/profile/rd/resnotes/cal_written_evaluation.htm

    Would you believe that almost two-thirds of California’s adult original Class C license applicants fail the English written test on their first attempt? Or that more than half of the renewal applicants also fail the English written test on the first attempt? A recent evaluation by the Department’s Research and Development Branch discovered these findings and many others. We collected more than 20,000 written tests over a 2-day period in August 1997 for original, renewal, and provisional English and Spanish language applicants. The results indicated surprisingly high fail rates for applicants taking the written tests. As illustrated in the figure, 65% of original applicants, 54.9% of renewal applicants, and 45.6% of provisional (English language only) license applicants failed the written test on their first attempt. The figure also shows that the fail rates remained high over successive test attempts.

  21. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME A CHILD WAS HIT IN 2008!
        Just two months ago a little girl and her brother were riding home from school on their bikes in the Bike lane in front of Willow Street Park when they were hit by a motorist.They were both wearing helmits, that saved them.
        The girl was the older of the two. When she was hit she landed on the hood of the car, rolled off the car and onto the street.Her bike ran into her brother and he fell off and into the roadway.She was rushed off to the hospital and survived.Her brother got up and ran home to get their mother.
        The driver of this car was a licenced person.
        We need more police officers, especially enforcement officers on motorcycles.We need to start pulling violators off the road.

  22. Let’s try getting people out of cars and then we can lower the amount of dangerous people behind the wheel. Stop building four-lane boulevards and huge parking lots. They’re ugly and they make people dependent upon their vehicles.

  23. I would still like to know what kind of justice this little girl and her family will receive? My questions remain this:

    If some one enters this country illegally, and I do not care from where Mexico, Cuba, Germany etc., and they kill someone or commit some other crime, what if anything is the legal ramification? If they are here illegally, do they have to stand trail here and if found guilty do they serve time here, or are they just deported? 

    And secondly, why are there policies in place that keep the Police from reporting illegal immigrants to the Immigration Department?

  24. David D, #24
      From your “point of view” you said it well, I agree.
        It`s a sad thing when a lobby group that recieves its funding from the city to lobby the same city for millions of $$$ to spend $30 million in 2008 for Golf money then turns right around a gets an additional $2,2 million already this year.This comes from “insider pressure” or “insider connections at City hall”. Our public priotity of Core Vsalues, Core services has been set aside by the people we elected and those whom manage our city because these same people haven`t got the nerve to stand up and say “no” to this “sports lobbying group” and tell them,“please understand we have more important core values to attend to in theses difficult financial times for the city.Pierluigi has been the only City Council person to speek out on this subject, to little avail.
      We “DO NOT HAVE A SHORTAGE OF PUBLIC GOLF COARCES IN SANTA CLARA COUNTY”, the last time I counted we had 12, there might be more.We have three of them.
      If we can`t manage these Golf Cources financially then we should admit it and do as San Francisco and Los Angeles has done and contract the management of these facilities out to a firm that manages public cources around the country like the “Arnold Palmer Golf Management firm.

  25. C’mon Richard Z, you must know by now that Los Lagos Golf Course has a special arrangement with San Ho staff. That’s just the way it is here in San Ho.

    That’s why the golf-course staff can get away with posting signs on the Coyote Creek Trail with hours shorter than the ones they’re told to post by Parks and Rec (I know, we all want to go home early, and these contractors are special, so don’t push the issue).

  26. When tragic accidents occur and there was no intention of harm, it sickens me how quickly the self-righteous (and as a result, hypocrites) jump to find so much satisfaction in blame and punishment. Neither will bring this girl back, and closing the borders will not significantly reduce accidents of negligence. How many times have you driven too fast, or when too angry, or too sleepy? How many in your younger days drove under the influence? How many times have you had a lapse of attention almost causing a potentially serious accident!?!?!

    On the other hand, the original article is right on the money. Fast accelerating with no doubt is essentially sociopathic driving behavior that is incredibly different than anything I have seen in 37 years of driving. I only have begun to see daily frequent demented driving mostly by young men, some who are ready to shoot you for honking if they had a gun.

    I huge step in the right direction: all cases of any reckless driving is immediate suspension of license for several years. Yes, it is a privilege, not a right (this would be a “green” solution also). I would add to that more unmarked police and highway patrol to catch these aggressive guys who have no regard for the lives of others.

    Again, these comments do not apply to the subject driver in the article.

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