Gaudreau Brothers Negligent Homicide (OT)

Posted that in the Flyers thread too but here's more horrifying details.

According to multiple reports, New Jersey State Police said the Gaudreau brothers were riding bicycles on County Route 551 when they were hit by a Jeep Grand Cherokee that was trying to pass an SUV on the road. The crash occurred around 8:30 p.m. ET, about an hour after sunset.

According to WPVI-TV in Philadelphia, the driver of the Jeep, Sean M. Higgins, was being investigated for driving under the influence. Online inmate records showed Higgins, 43, was being held on suspicion of vehicular homicide.

Ouch. I feel more like there but the grace of God go I. Many decent people do incredibly dumb things. My layer does 75% DUI cases. Increased punishment have reduced incidents, but alcohol ruins not only the lives of the victims, but also the perpetrators. There are people in jail for live because they were drunk and had a gun. Anyway he will be punished, and hopefully people will use more Ubers. In Pennsylvania his sentence would likely start at six years.

Higgins wanted to pass two cars. He passed the first on the left; the next car moved to the center of the road, so Higgins tried to pass on the right.

It was reported as being about 8:20 pm, so, dusk. Still if there was room to pass (and it was a passing zone, one-way northbound), there was presumably room to see ahead of both vehicles he was trying to pass...unless he's one of those drivers who never sees anything except whats' dead ahead.

For what it's worth, this is the stretch of road (looking northbound, which is the direction Higgins was reportedly going) where the accident occurred, according the the Courier Post. Higgins tried to pass on the right?

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From the Courier Post article:

Higgins struck the brothers while trying to pass a sedan and an SUV on northbound Pennsville Auburn Road, also known as County Route 551, near Stumpy Lane in Oldmans Township.

According to the probable cause statement, Higgins said he had passed the sedan when the SUV in front of him pulled to the center of the road as it passed the bicyclists.

Higgins said he thought the SUV's maneuver "was a counter action to prevent him from passing," the statement said. He then tried to pass the SUV on the right, striking the Gaudreau brothers on the narrow shoulder.

I haven't looked up the New Jersey criminal code here, but two counts of vehicular manslaughter, while under the influence of alcohol. I did track down a summary of the law and penalties on a New Jersey attorney's web site:

Vehicular manslaughter is a crime involving the death of a person other than the driver due to the criminally negligent operation of a motor vehicle.
...
In New Jersey, the severity of your penalties for vehicular manslaughter will vary depending on whether there are aggravating factors. Generally, it is charged as a second-degree indictable crime with a sentence of 5 to 10 years of prison time and up to a $15,000 fine. In most cases, prison sentences must be served without parole, serving three years of special parole after release.
...
In cases involving driving while under the influence (DUI), the court must impose a minimum prison sentence and a driver’s license suspension of five years to life. Additionally, you will face vehicle forfeiture, meaning the vehicles involved in committing the offense will be seized. If it is deemed as a first-degree offense, you can face between 10-30 years of imprisonment, which must be served without parole, requiring five years of special parole after being released, and a fine of up to $20,000.

This was 7:57. It was dark at 8:20. And you can't see people on the shoulder when cars are blocking your view. When you are passing on the left, the cars to your right block a lot of your view on the right.

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EDIT: the name of the upload is saved on this site? Brilliant.

I can ask my attorney friend, but I'm pretty sure it's 10 years max.

I understand your feeling, and yes, maybe it is an overreaction. But trying to pass a car that had moved over to the left on a 1 lane road ON THE RIGHT is extremely aggressive. To do that you almost certainly also have to be driving on the shoulder (assumption agreed, but I think a reasonable one).

This is pretty close to reckless endangerment. I know the guy stayed, and that is good (like you are suppose to), but his actions were way, way too aggressive and demonstrate a disregard for others to me. Obviously we don’t know all the facts, but just the story to me makes it sound like this guy really is not too concerned about the safety of others (once again, we only know some facts).

I could easily be overreacting, this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but when you see a car on a one lane road and it moves over into the left lane, passing it in the right is almost certainly going to end in something very bad.

The guy probably committed four or five other infractions, some of them multiple times, before he hit them - DUI, reckless driving, speeding, improper passing - but they all may be subsumed into the greater charge. For sure, there's not a whole lot of "there before for the grace of God go I" when you've had five or six beers and make a series of decisions that suggest you are a bad and aggresive driver even stone cold sober. Kind of ironic that he didn't panic and flee but was also too drunk not to incriminate himself or decline the field test.

But at the end of the day, no, I don't think he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison for purely punitive reasons and probably will eventually merit forgiveness (just like Andrew Bellati, who was admittedly a sober teenager, not a drunk adult). So to me it's only a question of how serious the penalty should be to discourage others. Not just from driving drunk, but understanding how to share the road with bicyclists. I would be fine if the mere presence of bicyclists in the incident - because clearly they were the reason the other cars were driving slowly and the guy felt he had to pass in the first place, never mind that he apparently never saw them at any time - automatically made the sentence greater.

The impatience of people trying to pass on 2-lane roads these days is pretty bad even before you put DUIs and bicycles into the equation. Passing somebody doing the speed limit on relatively busy 2-lane roads just happens all the time and seemingly much more often than in the past.

As a runner who generally hates drivers, I just don't think that should factor in here. He probably never saw the people on bikes (it was fairly dark... 8:20 on an overcast day) while passing on the left. It seems like he was reacting to the cars and had no idea about the bikers.

Absolutely punish him for being reckless and driving under the influence.

Bikes have as much right to the road as cars though. That's the law. It is the least of his problems of course. But his aggressiveness in trying to pass two cars at once also presumably prompted the other car to feel more pressure to get past the cyclists. Honestly if I'm the Gaudreaus' civil atttorney or this guy's defense attorney I'm doing a whole mess of research on the other drivers too (not saying I think they're in the wrong but then again none of us really know exactly how it went down).

If they weren't using any lights of course that will be used against them and in the guy's defense as well.

Yes they do, but I doubt he saw them.

I am staying away from the bikers having lights or if they should be biking at that time of day. Obviously the lead car saw them, so I don't think it should be an issue.

I

I think you missed an important point. From what I read he passed on the RIGHT, not the left. The 2nd car moved over to pass the bikes and this guy passed that car on the right and killed the bike riders.

That is beyond reckless. To do that you are almost certainly going to hit the car and it should be an indication that there is something (someone) in the road.

This guy to me demonstrated a complete lack of concern for others. Complete.

Ask yourself this- If he had instead run over 12 - 5 year olds walking on the grass near the street would you still think he should get a lighter punishment. That could have happened just as easily.

Listen, the sad reality is, he could have pulled over, pulled a gun, shot them, and still not done life (though it would be the possible maximum sentence).

The clear recklessness is implied by the charge. But it is probably still not first-degree, because hitting a cyclist or pedestrian in and of itself is not one of the things which trigger that, even DUI (as opposed to a school zone, or leaving the scene). That means 5-10 years (per count) rather than 10-20.

Odds are this never goes to trial.

Oh, I absolutely agree that this is how things are. I am not speaking of how they are, just how I THINK they should be. Clearly he will face a lesser penalty than I think is right.

Sad situation, whatever the punishment.

Should this be pulled as a separate thread?

The issue is definitely that he tried to pass on the right side, and he hit the bikers from behind so if he wasn’t intoxicated he probably would have seen them and may have been able to react. He wasn’t just drinking and then driving, he had an open container so he was drinking while driving. I assume he ran over the bikers rather than side swiped them. Regardless of being an aggressive driver sober - he said he was 5-6 beers deep, it could very easily have been more, so his reaction time is definitely impaired.