You’ve got to be kidding.
Life is really cheap in Georgia, where a 30-year old Augusta man was sentenced to a lousy two years behind bars for the hit-and-run that killed a 62-year old man riding a bicycle, while driving at nearly three times the legal alcohol limit.
He was facing up to 15 years for first-degree vehicular homicide. Yet prosecutors negotiated a nearly minuscule plea deal, despite an extensive record of traffic crimes dating back more than a decade — including a pending case for a previous DUI.
According to the Augusta Press,
At the time of the crash, Walker had a pending DUI case from an October 2019 arrest. While awaiting trial on the vehicular homicide charge, he pleaded guilty to the earlier DUI, receiving a one-day jail sentence, probation, a $1,000 fine, and a risk-reduction program requirement from Judge Monique Walker.
Walker’s driving record spans more than a decade, including multiple speeding convictions, driving with a suspended license, attempted eluding of police, and prior DUI allegations. In 2015, he served 40 days in jail for attempting to elude police, driving with a suspended license, and a stop sign violation, as well as 10 days for driving with a suspended license and marijuana possession. His 2019 DUI case lingered in court for years before being resolved during the homicide case proceedings.
Read that again.
One damn day behind bars for driving under the influence, even after he killed someone while driving drunk yet again.
Talk about authorities keeping a dangerous driver on the road until it’s too late.
The plea deal also includes credit for time served. And since he has a record of driving without a legal license, we can expect he’ll be back on the street and free to kill again in no time.
Yet just acouple hours away in Savannah, Georgia, prosecutors have thrown the book at another DUI hit-and-run driver, who killed a popular local known as the Flag Man for riding his bike around town carrying an oversized American flag, while driving stoned and with multiple prior DUIs.
That driver faces charges of homicide by vehicle, hit-and-run resulting in death, serious injury by motor vehicle, tampering with evidence, operating a vehicle without a tag, no proof of insurance, driving with a suspended license, and failure to yield right of way to a bicyclist.
Make it make sense.
Photo from Pexels.
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This is the cost of traffic violence.
The parents of a 13-year old Utah boy killed by a drunken hit-and-run driver told a parole board that “you never move on” from the death of a child like that.
The driver was asking for early release from a sell-deserved sentence of up to 15 years behind bars, along with a second term of up to five years — even though he had five — count ’em, five — previous DUIs.
And once again, authorities can take pride in knowing they kept a dangerous driver on the road until it was too late for a 13-year old boy.
And for his family, who will never be the same.
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Famed DJ Diplo is one of us, recording himself riding a bikeshare bike along a busy Miami highway to catch a flight to Milan, where he performed at the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics.
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The war on cars may be a myth, but the war on bikes just keeps on going.
An insurance expert criticizes New Jersey’s draconian, “knee-jerk” ebike law, which requires licensing and registration for all ebikes, regardless of power or speed, which he says will be particularly harmful to delivery riders.
No bias here. Traffic tickets issued to London bicyclists dropped by a remarkable two-thirds in just two years, but The Times summarily rejects even the possibility that bike riders are behaving better by blaming it on a drop in the police force.
But sometimes, it’s the people on two wheels behaving badly.
A Scottish letter writer says you can just forget implementing strict liability for drivers who hit bike riders or pedestrians, as long as those darn scofflaw bike riders continue to run red lights and ride in dark clothing without lights.
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Local
LADOT is hosting a public meeting at 6 pm tomorrow to discuss protected bike lanes on Ohio Blvd, a key east-west bicycling corridor, as part of the Ohio Avenue Safety and Mobility Project; oddly, though, the Los Angeles agency is hosting the meeting at the Collins & Katz YMCA in Santa Monica. Apparently, they couldn’t find any venues in Los Angeles willing to take them.
State
The Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition is appealing a decision to add a traffic lane and parking spaces in front of Santa Rosa’s downtown mall, which they say would make the street much riskier for people riding bicycles.
National
You can find a lot of things while riding your bike with friends, including a litter of abandoned puppies.
That feeling when a bike advocate is behind a Portland neighborhood group’s opposition to replacing the plastic bollards currently protecting marking bike lanes with concrete curbs.
A Portland lawyer accuses the local cops of going easy on drivers who hit bicyclists, especially if the drivers say they’re really, really sorry.
The Washington State legislature is also considering a bill that would create a new category for mopeds and e-motos between ebikes and motorcycles.
Singletracks looks at five of the best mountain bike trails in Nevada, “From high-alpine descents near Lake Tahoe to bone-dry technical lines in the Las Vegas desert.”
Travel site Islands looks forwards to New York’s massive annual TD Five Boro Bike Tour through all of the city’s boroughs. And no, I’m not making the same mistake I made with Montreal, because this time I know Manhattan is an island, as is Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens.
That’s more like it. A 52-year old Rochester, New York man was sentenced to up to seven years behind bars for the drunken hit-and-run that killed a man riding a bicycle last year.
International
Momentum readers share why they ride their bikes to work.
Mérida, Yucatán now officially ranks sixth among Latin American cities when it comes to bicycling, even though only 4% of city trips are made by bike.
Brompton is addressing London’s high rate of bike thefts by sending theft victims a loaner bike free for two weeks while they shop for a replacement. That’s actually a brilliant marketing move, providing a free trial of their foldies at the exact time people are shopping.
An Irish woman beats the winter blues by becoming a nearly 100-mile a week bike commuter after moving to France’s Brittany coast.
France’s 434-mile La Voie Bleue has been named the European Cycle Route of the Year at the prestigious Fiets en Wandelbeurs exhibition in Utrecht; the scenic route stretches from Luxembourg to Lyon.
A Catalan ebike maker was the victim of a massive theft over the weekend, as burglars managed to get away with around a 120 ebikes worth the equivalent of $353,000 after breaking into a Barcelona warehouse.
New Zealand is considering changes to traffic regulations that would allow children under 12 to ride their bikes on the sidewalk for the first time, as well as mandating a roughly three-foot to 4 and a half foot passing distance for bikes and horses, depending on traffic speeds.
Competitive Cycling
The New York Times Athletic sports site patiently explains why 19-year old French cyclist Paul Seixas is pro cycling’s superstar in waiting.
Double Paris Olympic champ Kristen Faulkner is back on the boards aiming for track cycling gold at the ’28 Los Angeles Games, after winning two more golds last week at the Pan American track cycling championships.
L39ion of Los Angeles cyclist Jyven Gonzalez won the Elite race at the awkwardly named 4th Annual Alfred Parks “Ketch D Bull Fi Mi” Memorial Race in Belize.
Cycling Weekly examines the soaring costs of getting into youth bike racing, which threatens to keep countless kids out of the sport.
Finally…
That feeling when your ebike is taking notes from cars. Or when your bike seat gets a nose job.
And honestly, who among us has not asked a driver to ram us with their car, before riding a bicycle into a creek?
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Be safe, and stay healthy. And get vaccinated, already.
Oh, and fuck Putin.