John Sides points to a news report of a hit-and-run driver who “struck and slightly injured a pedestrian while driving his sports car in downtown Washington” and then said, “I didn’t know I hit him…I feel terrible…[But] he’s not dead, that’s the main thing.” He was fined $50.
It often seems to happen this way, that punishments for reckless driving are much less severe than the effect of the crime itself. (Even being “slightly injured” in a car crash has gotta be a personal loss of much more than $50, not even counting hospital costs.) This is particularly striking given that not every offender is caught, so you might think that punishments would be higher for their deterrent value. This is why it is important to stay safe on the road, as accidents like these can happen and you just never know when. Saying this though, if anyone has been through an incident like this, it comes as no surprise that the victims would check out sites like www.joyelawfirm.com/columbia/car-accident-lawyer/ to answers questions of how to move forward and advise them on how to get their life back on track, as this can be difficult for anyone to go through.
Why are the punishments so low? One reason is that many of the legislators who write the laws and judges who decide sentencing are themselves dangerous drivers at times, and I suspect that it can be easier for them to identify with the criminals than the victims. (If Gary Larsen were writing the laws, there’d probably be a death penalty for running over a dog.)
But I think there’s something deeper going on, having to do with retrospective and prospective decision analysis. In the driving example, it goes like this.
1. Suppose somebody (e.g., Dick Cheney) is driving dangerously but nobody is hurt, or not seriously. Then the response is that no serious harm was done–it’s just one of those things–so no point in having a big punishment.
2. Suppose somebody (e.g., Ted Kennedy or Laura Bush) is driving dangerously and seriously injures or kills someone. Then the response is that it’s a terrible tragedy but very bad luck, so what is gained by seriously punishing the driver.
The issue is that deaths and serious injuries are also rare–even if you drive recklessly, it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll kill someone in any given outing. However, if you are caught, you may find yourself having to take classes at the local traffic school as punishment. So you’re stuck between punishing the almosts and might-have-beens or really laying down the hammer on the serious cases. No option seems quite right. Although I guess in this case the pedestrian will do all right because he’ll probably sue the driver for a couple of million dollars. Of course, these examples are simply conjecture, and as noted, the criminal damages case will likely be overshadowed by the follow up civil case levied against the driver. Ultimately this highlights the diversity of our legal system, and if one is to uphold it, one cannot help but admire the sterling job that a criminal lawyer does in reducing the sentencing or penalties incurred by their client.
"It often seems to happen this way, that punishments for reckless driving are much less severe than the effect of the crime itself. (Even being "slightly injured" in a car crash has gotta be a personal loss of much more than $50, not even counting hospital costs.)"
Wait, are fines *supposed* to be of equivalent value to the amount of personal loss that is suffered? The fine doesn't go to the victim, does it? Maybe it does, and I totally don't understand how things work in your country… especially since you have to buy your own healthcare :S
Reckless driving should be reprimanded, to discourage the behaviour, but some things are just accidents. Why make two people suffer when one is bad enough?
Interesting scenarios. In #2, I can't imagine that if the dangerous driving caused the death or serious injury, one should not punish the driver. If there was causality, how could it have been due to "bad luck"? I suspect that the name of the perpetrator may have more to do with the leniency. Perhaps that why you picked those examples.
In #1, we are talking about the lack of appreication for expected values, and the public perception of risk. The act of driving dangerously incurs the risk of killing someone. The probability of that happening is tiny but the loss inflicted if it happens is huge. In this case, I think the expected loss has been underestimated. The chance of a road accident is small but not that small, say compared to plane crashes, earthquakes, etc.
While in scenario #1, nobody was injured but the risk was there and in a different "sample", somebody might well have died. Our society chooses to punish the one "unlucky" person who actually killed someone, as opposed to spreading the punishment over all those who acted irresponsibly who were "lucky" to not be the unlucky one. well, the $50 represents a bit of spreading of the punishment but perhaps it's not high enough.
Nfo,
You write, "Reckless driving should be reprimanded, to discourage the behaviour." My guess is that $50 is not much of a discouragement.
Beyond this, yes, I think "the punishment should fit the crime" is a general principle. Not an absolute principle, to be sure, but something to think about.
Regarding your statement, "some things are just accidents": Sure, but the driver can control the probability of such an accident with his or her behavior. A difficulty here is that it's all probabilistic. See Kaiser's comment above.
Kaiser,
My impression from reading occasional newspaper articles about this sort of thing is that punishments for these things are often small for the reason stated by Nfo above ("Why make two people suffer…").
Reckless driving ought to draw more than a $50 fine, in my opinion. Actually I'm surprised that any penalty would be so low these days. I'm sure that just a ticket for a traffic violation would be several hundreds in most jurisdictions.
In any case, the police decided who was at fault and by paying the fine the driver admits fault. This makes it pretty easy for the pedestrian's law suit to succeed (likely to be settled out of court and insurance companies don't like to go to trial; if the injuries were slight I doubt that the award would go into the millions but it might be in the low to mid 6 figures, I guess.
Is that a reference to the fact Gary Larson once ran over a dog on his way to interview for a job with the Humane Society (or some similar org).
This wasn't just any driver.
http://mikekr.blogspot.com/2008/07/robert-novak-c…
The fact is that Americans are addicted to driving, and addicted to making excuses for poor driving; it was perhaps 20 years ago that MADD finally made drunk driving seen as a crime rather than a sort of harmless fun.
One benefit of $4 a gallon gas prices is that perhaps 4,000 people in the US will be alive this year (given nearly 10% decline in auto fatalities this year, from what I heard on the radio).
Thanks for pointing out that it was a celebrity involved, green apron monkey. That puts an additional spin on it. I hadn't yet followed links to descriptions of the incident, and that's a relevant context. Clearly, the cops were inclined in favor of believing the celebrity driving a Jag rather than the old guy who lives in a shelter — to the point that they didn't even bother interviewing the various eyewitnesses to the hit. Witnesses said the guy was spread over the hood and windshield, yet Novak didn't even realize he'd hit someone?? OK, so his "defense" is that he was driving with blind disregard to his surroundings? That sure sounds like reckless driving to me.
"Beyond this, yes, I think "the punishment should fit the crime" is a general principle. Not an absolute principle, to be sure, but something to think about."
Actually, I don't think this is the principle that we follow, or should follow at all. Fines are not based on the "value of the cost of the crime" Fines or other punishments, should be based on helping to prevent the next crime. At times, the punishment can be far less than the crime, at at times far more.
Think of it this way. The best manner or eliminating drugs in our society is the have the harshest punishments possible and ignore the seller/suppliers. With huge punishments for the users, the demand dries up, in turn the supply. By attacking the suppliers, the demand still exists, but the supply is smaller, and thus costlier. This is incentive for others to join the supply side.
I see two possible explanations for the relatively low fine for reckless driving that doesn't cause an accident:
1. If no one is hurt, then it's just a "statistical life" saved, rather than an "identified life". And people spend more to save identified lives than statistical lives (see Landsburg's new book).
2. The accident itself distinguishes the actions of a simple reckless driver from one who causes an accident. The simple reckless driver could have averted the accident through a recovery (making him "wreckless", I guess), or perhaps would have driven less recklessly had the circumstances been different ("what if a kid had been crossing the road then?").
(I'm not sure that explains the Washington accident, though, just the general case.)