A one-two punch of cycling death news articles has put me in a rather angry disposition this morning.
From Reuters today (source):
Spanish driver sues dead crash cyclist for damage
MADRID (Reuters) – A Spanish driver who collided with a cyclist is suing the dead youth’s family $29,300 for the damage the impact of his body did to his luxury car, a Spanish newspaper reported on Friday.
Businessman Tomas Delgado says 17-year-old Enaitz Iriondo caused $20,500 of damage to his Audi A8 in the fatal 2004 crash in La Rioja region, the El Pais newspaper reported.
Delgado, who has faced no criminal charges for the incident, wants a further 6,000 euros to cover the cost of hiring another vehicle while his car was being repaired, El Pais said.
The youth had been cycling alone at night without reflective clothing or a helmet, according to a police report cited by El Pais.
His family won 33,000 euros compensation from Delgado’s insurance company after the firm acknowledged he had been driving at excessive speed and this could have contributed to the incident, El Pais reported.
“I’m also a victim in all of this, you can’t fix the lad’s problems, but you can fix mine,” Delgado told the newspaper, ahead of a January 30 legal decision on his suit.
The family said they had previously pitied Delgado for the guilt he must feel at killing their son but were now disgusted that his greatest concern appeared to be money.
“This was the final straw, a kick in the teeth,” the youth’s mother Rosa Trinidad told El Pais.
And then from yesterday, a story from Tucscon (source).
Jailhouse calls lead to longer sentence
A recorded jail conversation in which a woman made light of the bicyclist she had killed led to her getting a longer sentence in Pima County Superior Court on Tuesday.
Two months ago, Melissa Arrington, 27, was convicted of negligent homicide and two counts of aggravated driving under the influence in connection with the December 2006, death of Paul L’Ecuyer.
She could have received as few as four years in prison, but Judge Michael Cruikshank sentenced her to 10.5 years, one year shy of the maximum.
Cruikshank said he found a telephone conversation between Arrington and an unknown male friend a week after L’Ecuyer was killed “breath-taking in its inhumanity.”
In a call from the Pima County jail, the man told Arrington an acquaintance of theirs believed she should get “a medal and a (expletive) parade because she had taken out “a (expletive) tree hugger, a bicyclist, a Frenchman and a gay guy all in one shot.”
Arrington laughed. When the man said he knew it was a terrible thing to say, she responded “No, it’s not.”
The article goes on to mention that Arrington “was driving on a suspended license for a prior DUI,” and “had a blood-alcohol content of 0.156 percent, nearly double the DUI level.” More about the victim, L’Ecuyer, who it seemed was a very admirable individual, can be read here.
I don’t know which of these two news stories I find more despicable, but I wish the very worst on both of them. At least some form of justice was found in the case of Arrington, which is far better than the 2006 case of Jennifer Stark who killed cyclist Matthew Wilhelm because she was too busy dowloading cell phone ring tones to pay attention to the road. She got away with what was essentially a slap on the wrist, being charged with “improper lane change” which results in a maximum penalty of “six months of conditional discharge (probation without reporting to an officer), a $1,000 fine and traffic safety school.”
