Their "prank" was irresponsible and did pose some risk of danger to drivers, but they had no way of knowing that a driver would be driving so recklessly that they would swerve off the road and roll their car to avoid the painted decoy deer.
Their actions did contribute to the accident, and they bear some responsibility.
However, the majority of the responsibility for what happened lies with the driver.
The vast majority of outrage about this incident isn't because of the prank that they performed, but because of the severity of the accident, and if the driver was operating the vehicle safely there would not have been an accident. At worst the driver would have done some relatively minor damage to his vehicles when striking the decoy.
They are getting 60 days locked up and 500 to 1500 hours of community service. That's not exactly a slap on the wrist.
The kids need to take responsibility for what they did, but they don't deserve to have the responsibility for mistakes of the driver layered on top of them that were not reasonably foreseeable.
Deer and other animals jumping out in front of a car on a rural road is not exactly rare. In this case the fake deer was even stationary.
The foolish "pranksters" should not have done this, and may should have possibly foreseen that they were putting drivers at some risk of damaging their cars, but I can't see how an accident of this magnitude would result if the driver were driving safely and was in control of the vehicle.
The driver is paying a heavy price for his part in the accident. The passenger is paying an even higher price.
It's a very sad situation.
As for delaying the sentence. Team sports can have a positive influence on many people, and while they are busy with practice and games, they aren't out getting into trouble.
A football scholarship may also be these kid's only real hope of going to college. There's no point in ruining their futures.
I feel sorry for the parents of those who were injured. I'm sure they have been through a terrible ordeal, but the Judge's duty is to make sure that the sentencing is just, not to satisfy the anger of the driver's parents especially when a portion of that anger appears to be misplaced.
Given the limited details given about the placement of the deer (over a hill, on a sharp curve, etc.) you might wish to "rethink" your comments placing the majority of the blame on the driver.
Wow, good post. Very good points!
Do you think that the parents of the injured kids should be able to sue the football players or their parents for damages?
"According to the Response Insurance group, car-deer crashes nationwide kill 150 people and a half-million deer each year, and cause an average of $2,000 in vehicle damage per crash. In Wisconsin, 11 people were killed in car-deer crashes in 2004."
Swerving to avoid what appears to be a full-sized deer in the road is not what I would call "driving recklessly", given that they could have been killed had they hit a real deer. We have the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, knowing they could have hit that decoy with little damage.
The fact that the driver was only 18 and lost control of the car in no way mitigates the fact that he attempted to do the correct thing.
The foolish "pranksters" got off easy. Plus, delaying that easy sentence made matters even worse.
They give out scholarships to "pranksters" who have served time in juvenile detention? If I was a relative of one of those injured, I'd make sure, by anonymous letter, that the college was aware of their criminal past.
What a complete load of apologistic nonsense. If one puts a object as large as a deer in the road it is entirely reasonable to expect that a car doing the speed limit is going to swerve. Even if they were speeding, the primary cause of this accident was the placement of the large object into the road. Any reasonable person would also understand that placing a large object in the road could very well lead to a serious or even deadly accident. To make convoluted excuses that shift most of the blame to the victim is ludicrous.
Yeah, it sure kept these two star athletes out of mischief.
I imagine you believe that an 18 yr. old driver should handle every road emergency with perfect precision and discipline. Give me a break.
These two have prior convictions for juvenial offences and have just been told that punishment for their current offenses is less important than football. Their future, at best, may consist of a couple of years at a Division II college, leaving without a degree, and most likely hard time in a penitentary for some future crime committed as some future date.
There's no point in ruining their futures.
And what kind of future did they leave the injured passenger as a result of their stunt. You can blame the driver and call him reckless but the long and short of it is had they not pulled their stunt the passenger would not have been injured and had his future destroyed. You have no sympathy for him but plenty for the jerks who did it to him. Putting an obstruction in the road just to see what happens in criminal, not irresponsible. At the very least these two should never be near the high school football team for their prior offenses alone, not to mention their current criminal acts.
The kids need to take responsibility for what they did, but they don't deserve to have the responsibility for mistakes of the driver layered on top of them that were not reasonably foreseeable.
Maybe they can sue the driver for what happened to them? </sarcasm>
Have you ever driven the stretch of road where this happened? I am guessing you have not it is where the deer was placed that was the problem and it was placed where it would be not seen until the last second.Then the ones who placed it there drove back and forth to see what would happpen when drivers came upon it.
I'll probably get criticized for agreeing with you but what the hell? Running off the road to avoid an animal is nuts, assuming the driver did it intentionally. If he went off the road because he lost control of the vehicle there is a good chance he was driving at an unsafe speed. Too bad the kids pled guilty. It would have been interesting to see the police reports regarding speed and alcohol.
Oh, yeah, it clearly worked really well on these two hooligans....