Bothers me a lot that someone can run a red light, kill another person, and get away scot-free except for a higher insurance premium. But that's the sum of it when it comes to Suzanne Tubberville running a red light back in November.
It seems at some point -- the police department was uncertain when or if -- she did get a ticket for running that red light and smashing into a car and sending two old people to the hospital and one of them to the morgue after months of misery and worry.
The ticket,, we are given to understand, was dismissed. Dismissed because she took a driver's ed class. Which was apparently the second driver's ed class she took in 2011 in order to get a ticket dismissed for running a red light and smashing into a car. I thought we were limited to one ticket dismissal per year. Seems I am wrong, at least for tickets given to some people.
If she had been drunk she would have been jailed and charged with vehicular manslaughter or something similar. Quite possibly there would have been prison time.
Here she was not drunk as far as we know. The result -- a death -- was exactly the same and yet she walks. What kind of fucking justice is that?
There was a crime committed -- a red light run -- but the fucking court allowed that to be taken off the table.
This sort of thing has gotten under my skin before, when a driver smashed into a city employee and left him a paraplegic, from pure careless driving. If that driver had been drunk, they would have thrown the book at her. As it was, for precisely the same result, she walked.
Stupidly dangerous driving while sober is to my limited understanding more serious than driving badly while intoxicated. I mean, a drunk driver has an excuse for stupidity. What kind of excuse does a sober driver have? And why do we let such a person loose on the streets?
If there is the same harm done, why isn't the penalty the same? There ain't no fucking justice here.
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