Don't worry, I didn't lay it down.
Posted on 05/07/2008 2:01:31 PM PDT by Sopater
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — The Howard County State's Attorney's Office says a driver who struck and killed a county police officer last year has paid her traffic fines.
Prosecutors say Stephanie Grissom of Columbia paid $310 in fines for speeding and negligent driving. She also received three points on her driving record.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Don't worry, I didn't lay it down.
You have a lot of good stuff up in there!
I’m happy that the two of us can disagree cordially. Sometimes on FR disagreements are rather nasty.
I cannot agree. Whether the posted speed limit is some arbitrarily designated speed or for other reasons, once someone has DECIDED to violate that posted speed, they have made a choice in their behavior. So, legally, practically, and common sense wise, this was no accident. The individual’s choice caused this event.
I’m not responsible for the ignorance of that grand jury. As for “defacto” speed limits, come to CA and do 80 in a 55 and see if the CA HWY Patrol doesn’t introduce themselves to you. With regards to the “essence” of transportation, it is not “speed” that creates a good transportation system. Just ask those in the trucking industry. They don’t make any more money getting there quicker than they do getting there safer. And speed limits are not imposed as simple revenue rasing tactics. Try stopping your vehicle at 80 mph to avoid debris or some other incident in the roadway, and then try stopping at that posted 55 mph and see which one is safer.
Yeah, that was already pointed out to me.
By your measure, we’d be safer still at 25 mph. Why not that?
This is Maryland. Speed limits are not particularly correlated with safety-related factors, but rather with revenue-generation opportunities.
sitetest
What if the speed limit were 75?
Nothing else is different, but the arbitrarily-chosen speed limit is now 75.
Tell me, scientifically and technically, how this would make her any less or more guilty.
“I have a rubber ball in my yard just waiting for those divers. “
What’s the rubber ball for?
Sure, there’s some truth in that.
What about situations (I saw them in my old state of Ohio) where just by virtue of statute, that a state route, with a speed limit of 55 on one side of the street, has a speed limit of 35 on the other side of the street simply because that side of the street is in the city limits of a municipality?
You can’t tell me that one side of the street is safe at 55 but the other side of the same street is only safe at 35...
41 in a 25 is markedly different from 71 in a 55. Stick with the facts of this case. That’s what the grand jury did. (I don’t know how things work in Maryland, but usually the prosecutor can indict on his own. He probably took it to the grand jury for political cover.)
Ping.
In Maryland, I'm pretty sure that for a felony, one requires a grand jury to indict. For a misdemeanor, a prosecutor can obtain an information from a judge.
Or so my lawyer tells me.
sitetest
From a criminal defense attorney’s website: “Whenever you are charged with a felony you are entitled to an independent review of the case by either a Grand Jury or a District Court Judge. If the State presents the case to a grand jury in a secret proceeding and the Grand Jury finds sufficient facts to go forward then the Grand Jury will indict you and you will not be entitled to a preliminary hearing. If the State’s Attorney decides not to take the case before a Grand Jury then you are entitled to preliminary hearing in front of a district court judge Preliminary hearings for felonies are typically held in the District Court.”
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this.
That’s one opinion.
I’m sure you are intelligent enough to answer that question on your own.
You expect me to answer a hypothetical (and rhetorical) question regarding an incident without knowing what all the particulars are regarding that incident? Each case has to be measured on it’s own merits, and you know that. I’m not going to fall into this trap.
It is not markedly different if someone is killed in an incident which involves driving above the posted speed limit. Ask someone who has had a family member killed whether they think there’s a difference with how much the speed of the vehicle was over the speed limit in terms of the outcome.
I don’t know why people seem to have lost sight of the fact that a person was killed in this case, and that it is not just about speeding.
First, I meant drivers not “divers”. Second, I’ll let you’re imagination run with it.
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