I never understood the concept of right of way defaulting to non-cars. Seriously, it makes zero sense when you think about it. A pedestrian walking can stop, turn around, and sprint in the other direction at the drop of a hat, but a motor vehicle travels a distance equivalent to approximately 3 seconds of driving at speed to slow to a stop. (about 200 feet at highway speeds, or 2/3 of a football field.) If you work with animals larger than yourself, you need to always be mindful of their actions, not the other way around because things that are bigger than you can hurt you. You do not tempt fate by walking behind a horse, for instance.
Another example of this, experience speaking, was a teenager decided to cross an active highway. On a blind corner. Before sunrise. Dressed entirely in black. In thick fog. The vehicle was able to dodge him by a few feet, but it had to go into the other lane, in the dark, on a blind corner, facing a head-on collision to do so. The kid never looked our way, or even seemed to hear the screech of the tires, but kept on walking to the bus stop. Thankfully, nobody was injured, but it was not a fair situation to the driver in the least. There were literally dozens of things which could have been done differently on the pedestrian's part to avoid this situation, and numerous ways this could have gotten FUBAR in an instant, the irony being that the fog probably saved him - we were driving much slower than normal speeds because of it. That, and because we weren't one of the log truck drivers that frequent the highways and cannot stop for beans.
Honestly, I have a general feeling of apathy on this situation, like several of you. The punishment was steep for the crime, but having grown up on adages the common sense side of me defaults to "reaping what is sown." People need to realize that every action has consequences, regardless of what it is, and nobody is going to watch out for you as well as you yourself can.
Hero in a half shell said:
You are in no way superior because you have managed to avoid such a situation arising.
Think back to all the crap you have done. Have you ever taken drugs? Well then you deserve to rot in a hole for the potential damage they could do, not to mention the economic implecations of supporting criminal gangs/South American drug lords. Do you smoke? Well then your lungs may as well shrivel into black goo because you are playing Russian Roulette with cancer. Have you ever had sex without a condom? Well then you and your illegitimate children might as well die of AIDS and HIV. Have you ever gone excessive speeds down roads, or fooled around with fireworks, or went up a ladder unsupervised, went fishing without a lifejacket, or cycled without a helmet, or crossed the road without looking, or didn't wear a seatbelt, etc. etc. etc.
What I am getting at from that long list is that every one of us has had multiple moments in our lives where we took risks that could have been potentially deadly because we decided that the likelihood of things going wrong was so small as to be worth the risk.
Out of every one of these, I believe I have qualified for one of them, one time only. I crossed a street without looking, running for my life, because of a cruel prank involving my mailbox and a hornet's nest. Could I have run down the road instead of across it? Yes. I would still have to walk past it to get home though. Pretty sure people would be more accepting of a person fleeing from fear of a bee allergy brought on by another's malice running into hazard, though.
@ the Stephen Hawking eugenics argument, you are pretty much plain ignorant for making that comparison. Hawking was just like any other person his age until after he graduated from college, and still continued to make more progress in his field than many people. Even as his condition progresses, I hope that he will continue to be able to cast light into the dark areas of the world. (Well, maybe not black holes, they are hard to cast light onto.) Unless you plan to do absolutely nothing with your life besides commit crimes or panhandle, you probably would never be selected, either. It would be more likely to pass death penalties on life-term inmates for violent crimes who show no inclinations of providing anything to society. If you knew what eugenics really was, you would know that it sought to eliminate non-productive members of society, or those which showed absolutely no potential, something which I would imagine 99.999%~ of you display. Survival of the fittest is how we got here, and if we intend to stay, it needs to be heeded at the very least. Pure idealism does not hold much worth outside innovation within a practical world.
