Posted on 06/20/2014 8:45:35 AM PDT by rickmichaels
MONTREAL – A woman who stopped to help a group of ducklings on the side of the road has been found guilty of causing the deaths of a motorcyclist and his passenger daughter who slammed into her parked car.
Emma Czornobaj was convicted Friday by a jury on two counts of criminal negligence causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing death.
Czornobaj, 25, was charged in the deaths of Andre Roy, 50, and his daughter Jessie, 16, on a Montreal-area highway.
Czornobaj appeared to turn and wipe away a tear when she heard the verdict delivered.
Quebec Superior Court Justice Eliane Perreault polled the jury, which entered its fourth day of deliberations on Friday, on their verdict and they reported they were unanimous.
Czornobaj will return to court for a pre-sentence hearing on Aug. 8.
Criminal negligence causing death carries a maximum life sentence while the charge of dangerous driving causing death comes with a maximum of 14 years in jail. Czornobaj has no previous criminal record.
Roy’s motorcycle slammed into Czornobaj’s car, which was stopped in the left lane of a provincial highway in Candiac, south of Montreal.
His daughter was riding on the back of the motorcycle when the collision happened on June 27, 2010.
The trial heard that Czornobaj, who had three years’ driving experience at the time, had stopped to rescue ducklings on the side of the road.
The professed animal lover told the court that she did not see the ducklings’ mother anywhere and planned to capture them and take them home.
Emma Czornobaj
NOT GUILTY!
Ducks don’t walk around at night. The have no cones, just rods.
She stopped in the fast (left) lane of a multi-lane road with a (from what I have read) 100 km/h (60 mph) speed limit. Without putting her 4-way flashers on, again from what I have read. A busy inter-urban highway at that. She’s just lucky that it wasn’t a tractor trailer that rear-ended her at speed. As to why the motorcyclist wasn’t able to avoid her: it’s possible that there was another vehicle ahead of him blocking his view which changed lanes to the right at the last moment without slowing, catching him off guard.
Yes, a driver or rider should be able to stop and avoid something on the road if necessary, even on a multi-lane divided highway at speed. Back in reality land, though, you don’t expect someone to stop and park in the fast lane - it wasn’t by any definition an emergency, and the motorcyclist certainly wouldn’t have hit her if she didn’t stop there.
I don’t want to see this woman’s life ruined for her stupid mistake, but when you do something this stupid, with those sorts of consequences, I think something a little more severe than raised insurance rates, a traffic ticket and a fine is in order.
“The motorcyclist was a biggest moron.
Cars stall in the middle of the road. Treads of tires come off and lay in the road. An animal could have been in the road.
It’s stupid to drive so fast that you can’t stop for what you can’t yet see.”
In theory, yes. In reality...
Do you drive on a busy urban freeway regularly? Traffic is heavy, drivers are aggressive, and if you try to leave a proper gap to the car in front of you, someone will pretty much immediately take it. It’s not safe, but that’s how everyone drives on these kinds of roads. Stopping in a traffic lane is virtually suicidal for the driver, and a huge hazard to everyone else on the road. Not a reasonable thing to choose to do.
“This woman deliberately and on purpose caused the death of two innocent people.”
No, she deliberately and on purpose parked in a high speed traffic lane. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t her intent to cause anyone’s death. That’s why she was charged with criminal negligence, not first degree murder.
Funny thing is, I actually feel bad for her, too. I’m sure she didn’t anticipate that this would result from her actions. She was motivated by good intentions. I imagine she probably feels terrible about the deaths that she caused (or at least contributed to), and won’t ever do something like this again. OTOH, one of the reason we punish people for criminal acts is as deterrence, so a suitable sentence here to remind people of the possible consequences is necessary.
Hope she gets life without parole!
Well, that photo is clearly taken at night, and I don’t think they left the wreck sitting in the roadway like that for hours. You can even see the spraypaint on the road where they are marking the position of the wreck before they tow it out of the way.
She wasn’t exactly playing the Knockout Game.
HE was responsible for the accident, not this lady.
Absolutely! Take the ducks out of the equation and insert "stalled car", the end result would have been the same.......
Yup. There are times you just can't do anything about it.
The older I get, the more I think about those scenarios, and the less I ride.
Not me. I figure the time of my death is up to the Lord. I figure I'm in His hands anytime I'm on the road, whether in a cage or on a bike.
Let's say you're cruising down a 2-lane road at 65 mph in west Texas. You're definitely not speeding, and visibility is miles in every direction. As you're about to pass someone in the opposite direction, a road runner darts out into the road, and frightens the driver going the other way, and he plows into you head on. You are DRT, and there is not a damned thing you could do about it. Doesn't particularly matter if you're in an Escalade or on a crotch rocket. I decided a long time ago that I pretty much hand my life to everyne around me when I'm in a vehicle, and though you can take precautions and be prudent, ultimately, whether you live or die it's not really up to you.
According to the article, the woman driving the truck towing a camper said she swerved to the right to avoid hitting the parked car.
It's not. The motorcyclist has to share some of the blame. If he's not capable of stopping for a woman who deliberately stopped then he wouldn't be able to stop for a disabled vehicle.
I think you guys want to punished more for stopping for a duck than the fact that a motorcyclist couldn't stop in time.
Don't know where you live but just about every accident that causes a death is left for hours so the CSI teams get to practice what they see on TV.
So, not only was he speeding but he was doing so with a Sun blinding him.
Yeah, it was all her fault. /s
When did I say it was all her fault? It’s certainly mostly her fault, that’s for sure.
Hmmmm.... I got the impression from your rhetorical questions that you thought she was at fault. I don't notice any equivocation.
Did she even put on her hazard lights? Put up her hood? Flag anyone?She’s going to jail for a very good reason.
They weren’t rhetorical questions, they were actual questions to another poster, claiming the accident was the motorcyclist’s fault for not watching the road. Why would I equivocate when his premise was an absolute? (That one’s rhetorical)
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