Full disclosure: Eric Nelson is a friend and a colleague. But what happened to him shouldn't happen to my worst enemy. Last year, he was leaving a marathon here in Dallas, when an unlicensed, uninsured driver plowed into him and two others in a crosswalk. Here's what happened next, taken from the testimony Eric delivered today in Austin, before the state legislature:
We never saw her coming. She hit three of us from behind and kept driving, stopping only after she plowed into a fence post. I was thrown from the hood of her Mazda and eventually landed under a parked car. I don't remember the accident, but I'm told that it was a gory scene. I was bleeding from the head and had half a dozen broken bones. Two other runners - Jay Newton and Mary Oliver - each had two broken legs and an array of injuries.The police on the scene were convinced that I would not survive. They collected my running shoes and other evidence to begin preparing a manslaughter case. If I died, Brandy Hopkins would be charged with a felony. If I lived, she would receive a misdemeanor traffic citation.
Well, I wasn't going down without a fight. I had severe head injuries, bleeding at the base of my brain, fractured vertebrae, two broken legs, broken ribs and other injuries. I didn't wake up for a week. When I regained consciousness, I couldn't sit in a chair. I couldn't dress myself. I couldn't remember simple information.
I spent months in a wheelchair. I went to rehab seven hours a day, trying to relearn simple life skills. I wanted to be able to walk again. I wanted to be able to do my job as a newspaper editor again. The good news was that I was alive.
But because I survived, Brandy walked away with two misdemeanor citations - much like the penalty for running a stop sign. Brandy already had a long history of assorted traffic violations; this wasn't the first time she'd been cited for driving without a license. But after she hit three pedestrians, Brandy went right back to her life - she probably went right back to driving without a license or insurance. She hasn't even bothered to pay the fines for her tickets.
Amazingly, I'm the one who is forced to pay for what Brandy did. Driving without a license and without insurance is a costly crime - and the cost is multiplied exponentially when someone is seriously injured. Because Brandy had no insurance, all the medical bills are sent to me. Jay and Mary - the other two injured runners - are struggling under a mountain of medical bills as well. We all have insurance, but that only covers a percentage of hospital charges that are well into the six-figure range.
Eric was in Austin today to back what has become known as "Eric's Law," a bill that would make it a third-degree felony for an unlicensed and/or uninsured driver causes serious bodily injury.
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Yeah, as soon as I posted that I saw the flaw. Thankfully, no one died here. But that raises another question. Why should breaking someone's arm (a "serious bodily injury") while without carrying a nearly meaninglessly low level of insurance be treat as harshly or more harshly than negligently killing someone?
I have to agree with Public Defender. I think that you are combining the horrific outcome of the collision with the absence of insurance/license and somehow adding them together to presume a level of moral turpitude that isn't suggested by the limited facts we have. Again, this woman shouldn't have been on the road without license or insurance. And she should have been paying better attention and avoided the collision. But the two aren't necessarily connected. Other than the fact that her record is littered with infractions (and again, I would guess that most here have been pulled over for speeding more than once, making that description widely applicable), there isn't a suggestion that she was somehow incompetent to drive. The lack of insurance, particularly, makes this accident worse for the victim, but there's no indication that one is connected to the other.
Yes, this woman caused a lot of damage. But what caused the damage was her negligent driving, negligence that wasn't caused by her failure to comply with licensing and insurance laws. Eric's Law addresses the latter. It seems unlikely to change things for the better in any appreciable way.
Athelstane says;
"How many people are we talking about in Brandy's situation? Even one is too many. But your predicates here are reckless driving, without a license, with a record of previous infractions (let us say more than just parking tickets here, but infractions which reveal a pattern of recklessness), resulting in serious injury.
Is *that* going to fill up the jails?"
How do you know Brandy has more than just parking tickets? Or even speeding tickets? There's nothing to indicate that the previous infractions involve reckless driving. That absence, makes me very suspicious. What if he priors are all for driving without insurance, and then without a license because she lost it due to driving without insurance. You still sure she should get 10 to 15 years in jail??
The problem is you are thinking how to make this law narrow enough that it won't fill up the jails. The legislators are not.
First, I live in the area.
Some folks with the punishment mentality need a little 'shock and awe' themselves... so here it is:
Let's put her away 20 years and prevent her from doing it again... welllll, that just means more prisons and higher taxes to pay for it... sooooo start reaching into your pocket right now.
IF we put her away, that's not going to stop other accidents from occuring... and they will occur... they will ALWAYS occur no matter how many laws you pass.
AND more importantly...
MANY people are injured and killed every day in this country in accidents that...
are not wreckless, excessive or irresponsible in any way...
every person involved is licensed and insured...
weather, road conditions and visiblity are excellent...
autos are tagged, inspected and properly maintained...
and the person at fault has a spotless record.
The absolute truth that no one wants to ever admit is...
It's a dangerous world we have created ... period.
ALL OF US TOGETHER... both the responsible and the irresponsible... TOGETHER!
AND I MEAN EVERYONE... all of us together help to make this a dangerous world... believe me or not... it's true.
Those who build the cars in the GM plant here in Arlington combined with those who poured the concrete to build the local roads combined with the developers who build the businesses and houses combined with the people who make, and the other people who sell, the cell phones you see the guy in the next car talking on... and on and on and on... and the more you build, the more dangerous it gets... and the more children born and the more immigrants who come here, the more dangerous it gets...
Try giving that last statement a lot of thought... it WILL finally sink in.
You can try to lessen danger, but you will never remove it...
and when you build more, you multiply it... and it's possibilities for damage
and folks just want to go on believing that some miniscule multi-thousand dollar payoff to the proper people by a corporation will fix it...
or that a long jail term for someone who had a little trouble maintaining control of their car AND didn't pay off the proper authorities and corporations will fix it...
That's called delusional.
Licenses and insurance policies don't MAKE people drive safely... and the 'protection' you may think they provide is no where near the protection that is needed.
Ask yourself this one question as you drive down the road one day without the radio while contemplating really deep questions like 'why are we here?'...
'If I get killed in a car accident...
... will the insurance policy bring me back to life?'
Here's another question for ya:
'Do I really need to go up the street to the store to get a pack of cigarettes, which may kill me years down the road...
... if it means I may be killed today... right here... right now?'
Now some adivce for pedestrians... run like the wind while turning your head rapidly both directions...
And for bicyclists and motorcyclists.... stay OFF of them.
That adivce can go for airplanes too.
Do I need to explain.... if it can go fast, it can kill you?
Just one more thing...
How were situations like this dealt with BEFORE car insurance was mandatory?
I can tell you when that day came without looking it up... Sept 1, 1981 in Texas.
I graduated in June 1981... and 3 months later... BAM... you gotta buy something you parents and grandparents and great grandparents never had to.
I'm SURE back then, an accident just like this one occured... somewhere... involving an uninsured driver who didn't have to buy insurance... legally.
What about THEIR losses?
And remember back then... no airbags and people were not into the seatbelt thing... at all!
And having a brew while you drove was considered a pastime.
Me thinks the older folks who like to yell 'punish her!'... forget what THEY were like when they were young.
Since then, there's been sooo many laws... and so few solutions...
But I hear the lawyer and prison industries are doing well.
A previous poster said in response to not punishing...
' That will be very cold comfort, my friend, to the next people she injures or kills. But apparently that doesn't register on your moral radar. '
Despite attemps to make this person look evil... I'm SURE she did NOT intentionally run into those people.
(now reread that statement above that begins 'Those who build...')
Oh, yeah... wanted to also add...
My mother was recently involved in a wreck...
She's 65... her small car was struck by an suv and it rolled... demolished it... not one usable body part on it except the trunk lid.... a small dent on his fender.
He went right... over into her lane.... pushed her against the curb... car went airborn and rolled.
She went to the ER covered with bruises... in pain for weeks... now getting outrageous ER bills.
He's half her age... and had no insurance... allowed it to lapse... admitted he didn't see her and was his fault on the report.
He lives in THE most expensive neighborhood in my area... house was up for sale for over 700K...
He presented an insurance card with valid dates on it and didn't get a ticket for no insurance... I guess the cop didn't bother to check the recently created 'database' to ensure that a invalid policy WAS invalid.
He went and got insurance IMMEDIATELY after the accident... too late for us...
She just had minimum liability - no PIP
Lawyers basically say to us: You're screwed.
So it ain't just the poor and the irresponsible causing problems...
You think rich people will see jail time with this new law...?
Think again...
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