Hit-and-Run Auto-Pedestrian Car Crash Accidents Merit a Stern Response

The following is a guest blog courtesy of Jim S. Adler & Associates, Houston, TX:

From the headline to the story, the Tribune’s sympathetic focus was on the teen driver, and the fact that her bail was set at a high $500,000, and her family did not have the means to pay, and Cook County jail is a “tough place” for a young girl, and how she’s an honor student who’s about to attend college, and how she may deserve to be released on her own recognizance.

The driver’s attorney was interviewed at length to defend his client, and her family’s names were listed in detail, in a description of those attending a court appearance.

Almost as an afterthought, the story mentioned the victim’s name (Sarah Goone) and the fact that she’s suffered a severe brain injury, already has had several surgeries, and is in critical condition. Of course, none of this would have happened if the driver had not allegedly made a left turn while looking to the right to see if her friends were at a convenience store, then hit a classmate and  fled the scene.

Since the Tribune failed to do so, here’s a proper perspective on the sad events of May 14, when  Goone, a sophomore at New Trier High School, was critically injured by a driver who drove away and left her lying in the street.

Consider that more than 48,000 American pedestrians were killed by drivers between 1998 and 2007, and 18.1 per cent of those fatalities – almost a fifth — involved hit-and-run drivers. Also consider that the percentage of hit-and-run pedestrian fatalities has increased even as total pedestrian fatalities have decreased.

In short, America is becoming a nation where hitting someone with a car often leads to flight, rather than stopping to give aid, as the law requires.  Drivers are hitting, then running, and it’s getting worse. And now the courts are expected to go lightly on a driver charged in such a crash? After all, she’s an honor student. But where’s the honor in hitting someone with your car and then driving away?

Goone can neither seek nor receive any such reprieve from her dire circumstances. She has no bail to reduce, and no way out from her own confinement: in a hospital bed. Rather, after suffering traumatic brain injury, she faces only surgeries to try to save her life. And she did nothing wrong.

Hit-and-run driving is wrong. It’s not something to be shrugged off with the idea that a driver “panicked” and now deserves lenience. The Tribune story took the perspective of a driver charged in a crash. The legal system should properly weigh the perspectives of an innocent victim, and a society that deserves better.

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