The grieving parents of a 7-year-old child who died hours after being hit by a car were charged with involuntary manslaughter after allowing him and his brother, 10, to walk home unaccompanied by an adult from a nearby grocery store.
District Attorney Travis Page. Gaston County. Prosecutorial District 38. (704) 852-3113. Tell him your thoughts.
My sister and I played outside until it was dark. Then my dad would blow a whistle so loud that the entire neighborhood would hear it and come home.
Anything to shift accountability away from drivers, huh? Cars and the people behind the wheel of them are just an unavoidable force of nature now?
76yo probably shouldnt be driving, wanna bet the driver could be well connected, alot of these wierd incidents magically disappears.
The us is so fucked. I’ve been letting my kid take the buss to the other side of town alone since she was 9. And traffic accidents are very rare despite most neighbourhoods not having sidewalks at all. Of course we drive a lot slower and it takes months of obligatory coursework to be eligible to take a driving test. https://www.vegvesen.no/en/driving-licences/driver-training/how-to-get-a-driving-licence/passenger-car--b/
I’m SO mad at this story. There is no reason to charge the parents. As others have stated, helicoptering kiddos is detrimental, and they need to be allowed to roam their environment – That can come at the cost of danger, but we cannot be expected to grow with 0 risk.
Sure, as a parent, you can state: ‘don’t go there’, and ‘always look both ways’, but kids are kids and there’s only so much you can enforce without being overbearing. In this scenario, without video evidence, there’s no clear conclusion about fault for either the driver or the child.
I’m okay with letting the driver off (criminally, let insurance pay the family but don’t put the driver in jail) and acknowledging this as an accidental death, especially since he stuck around and is complying. Charging the parents for negligence, though, is just fucking brutal when they are suffering the loss of a child, not to mention the impact on the older son, who probably is feeling an unreasonable amount unreasonable of guilt: “I could have held his hand; I could have reminded him of the road…” (not his quotes, my presumed internal dialog). Again, as others have stated, this is a city planning problem, not a parental one: If there was a way to walk to a grocery store that didn’t cross a 4-lane road, that’d be a better option, but there are plenty of places where that is not possible.
These parents do NOT need the extra burden of being held legally liable for an accident and anyone blaming them for this without knowing them personally and being able to describe other aspects of their parent as negligent is just an asshole.
it’s ghoulish.
This feels like an origin story for a Punisher reboot.
They got it backwards. I will hold the road planners, the city government, the driving license issuer, and the driver responsible. It start with poorly designed roads and ends with poor driver training. The parents are the victims here.
If you watch the video in THIS report, it’s clear that planners should bare some responsibility here.
They designed no logical, safe crossing where people need to cross. Even during the report, you can see other pedestrians walking across.
The only “sidewalk” is a tiny strip on only one side, and it’s right against the curb. You might as well be walking in a shoulder!
And the speed in an area like that is too damn fast.
That road was designed to be anti-pedestrian. Not the parent’s fault.
It’s the parents fault for birthing a child into this hellscape into the first place. We’ve built this inherently violent landscape and your letting your spawns roam free? /s
but they want people to have more kids. lolwtf
Never blame the asshole in the car. Always blame someone else.
Did you read the article? The kid ran out into the street. The driver wasn’t speeding or impaired. They did nothing wrong so what exactly do you want them to be blamed for and why are they the asshole in this situation?
I read the article. Did you? Did you notice what it didn’t say? We can quickly infer that the man is local and these were local streets. What kind of crazy mother f***** would drive 25 in a 25 when there’s kids right next to them? I know what kind of crazy mother f*****, the kind who wouldn’t care if they struck those kids and killed them. The rest of us would show common sense, we would see the kids, and we would slow down to 15 miles an hour because we know that little kids might step out into the street accidentally and care about the lives of children.
Let me put it simply. If you see a kid near the road, slow the f*** down, you aggressive m***********.
You’re right. There’s nothing insinuating the driver is at fault in the article. That being said with him being 76 I’d fucking loooove to see if he could pass a driver’s test.
The fact theyre charging the parents is fucking ridiculous.
Driving a killing machine. You don’t point a gun at anything you don’t want to kill. You dont drive a car without willingness to kill.
Streets should not be a place its just okay to murder children.
I would argue, and i know this is kind of radical and lots of you will disagree, that we should not have places where its okay to murder children.
I think you mean “involuntary manslaughter children” not “murder”.
Involuntary manslaughter just requires negligence, and cars and roads seem like tailor made environments for drivers to be negligent.
I know people here like to throw the ‘murder’ accusation around but it is a totally different level of intent and culpability - and it’d be hard to prove it beyond reasonable doubt.
In my country though there is special laws for drivers , death by dangerous driving, and death by careless driving - so as long as you use a car, the normal rules for manslaughter don’t directly apply.
I think , here, if you’ve killed someone it is hard to defend against a death by careless driving charge, as our highway code is very clear on duty of care towards vulnerable road users. But ultimately it’d be jury’s decision on “reasonableness”. I can’t see how no charges would be brought though - as the jury has to determine it, and any death must be taken seriously.
Prosecution should just need to show that there was a hazard (pedestrians, children, in this case the corpse should do the trick) and that a reasonable driver could have done more, say slow down to less than 20mph.
“no evidence of speeding” might be enough for some jurors, but that should be their call.Our problem over here is more on the punishment side. The punishment for death by careless driving seems lower than other forms of negligent killing. Many will get away with a small fine/community order and a 12 month ban from driving. So i think a lot of people probably plead guilty to avoid the fine and get away with a 1 year ban.
Weak punishment, but there’s at least an acknowledgement that they did something wrong.
Back to this case it seems crazy (to me) that there is not even a question for the court to determine whether the driver was negligent. Maybe the driver was reasonably attentive and had taken all reasonable measures to keep other road users safe, but surely they should be made to demonstrate that to the court.
Welll, part of the issue here is that americans are R strategists, and we must cull the weakest of our children pretty regularly.
Generally crimes committed with a car carry less/no penalty here, but it isn’t formalized.
You dont drive a car without willingness to kill.
eeeeh might be time for a break
Youre right. Im sorry i said that.
We absolutely need a place where its okay to kill children, and streets are far and away the best option for that.
I get a little stupid and udealistic sometimes when im high, but I’ve sobered up now.
you’re misreading my intent, deliberately. no one is suggesting those things.
cars are fucking this culture up. comments like this are pretty good evidence.
You don’t drive a car without willingness to kill
It has been a while since I’ve come across a statement that leaves me wondering how anyone came to such a disconnect with reality. Watching these mental gymnastics is making me sea sick.
I drive a car with a willingness to get from where I am to where I’m going, quickly. A comparison to a gun is just retarded: guns are killing machines because that is their sole purpose. The purpose of cars is fast transport of people and cargo.
Now, “murder” needs to show intent, and it sounds like you’re concluding anyone who is killed by a car is murdered because drivers must intend on killing someone simply because they got behind the wheel. I’m going to go ahead and assume you either a) don’t have any friends or family who drive, or, more likely, b) don’t have any friends and don’t talk to your family.
willingness to get where im going quickly
And a willingness to kill to get that done, if necessary, or you’d be on a train or a bike.
I think your high ping has caused you to be disconnected with reality, try rebooting your modem.
You’re right. I switched to a wired connection and im much more reasonable now.
Of course we need designated child killing zones. How else will we cull the weak, and keep america strong?
No he did not read. People here do not read and just go for “oh the poor kid” without knowing the whole story. Also they want to stop a vehicle going 45mph to 0 in a dime. Literally these commentator have never driven a car.
In Netherland, max speed is usually 30 kph (about 20mph) when there’s any chance of interacting with other traffic (bikes or pedestrians). The idea of walking along a busy road where cars go 45 mph is ridiculous. Separate the traffic streams and give them crosswalk with traffic lights, or slow down the cars.
The idea of infrastructure which is not hostile to humans seems to be totally alien to some people.
Mountains of shame looking for someone to blame in the dum dum land of lowest common denominator. This Yankeeland, this imperialist empire, this empty vessel of lesser things, this pit of despair we lean into the Edward Bernays dreamland of sucking the tit of the rotton corpse of the rugged individualtic mother. Ohhhh the humanity. Ohhhhh the humanity thots and prayerzzzzzzz. Fascist are the useful idiots of empire and capitalism and fascism are like peas and carrots. The liberals are fascist. You call me negative and I think you are stupid. Welcome to the lords and ladies of the clown kingdumb. The leader is a follower ,the follower is a leader that is dead. If their is a hell it is inside your head. Nothing WILL EVER change in Yankeeland. It is like demanding for HBO in Alcatraz. You can not solve generational issues until the boomers in office finally die this won’t happen in your lifetime. This evil empire is gonna set the world on fire.
This is absolute bullshit, just because the US is incapable of making good walkable neighbourhoods doesn’t mean the parents are at fault of letting their childeren be normal.
No but see we need designated zones where it’s okay to murder children.
Otherwise how will we get rid of the most annoying ones?
Schools fill that role apparently.
That just seems wasteful. Think of all the labor and cleaning products you’d need after every single kid!
Explain normal? If this was a street inside a subdivision, I would totally understand. Speed limit on that road is 45mph
- Either come up with engineering to stop from 45mph to 0mph in a dime
- Take care of your kids, watch the surrounding, be vigilant else don’t have kids
Yeah, there just need to be places where its okay for anyone to murder children. These filthy fucking europeans just don’t understand, because of their low birth rates, but as proud r strategists, americans need to be able to kill some of their children, and must have robust mechanisms for culling the weak.
I walked two blocks between home and school every day when I was 7. This is insane.
Yeah, in first grade I’d walk several blocks to school and back
Half the kids in my school lived in town, they all walked home. A lot of our streets didn’t have proper sidewalks.
Back in the 60s, I walked to and from kindergarten in a school that was at least a mile away, starting when I was 5 years old. Once I could ride a bike, around 6 years old, a typical Saturdayor summer day meant hopping on my bike after breakfast, and disappearing for the day, with no phone, wallet, id, money, etc. My pockets would be literally empty. If I needed a drink of water, I would knock on a stranger’s door and ask for one. The only rule was be home by 5 for dinner.
Everybody was a free range kid back then.
I’m so disappointed that I don’t see these days coming back.
5 blocks for me but it’s the same thing.
Glad I grew up when I did and in Canada.
About a Kilometer for me. Felt longer as a kid… My brother had to commute by bus at 8, because the school was fused together with the one in the next village.
The US are seriously weird.
Everything felt longer as a kid and I kinda miss it :')
Frankly, I hated it. I am happy that as an adult, I can now walk a two-digit amount of kilometers without having to take a break and being at peace with myself enough to not get bored. I do sometimes get nostalgic about school, but not because of the walk. It felt like forever. In addition, being an unpopular kid that got into fights meant there was a non-zero chance of getting my ass kicked at times.
Yes, it contributed to me being a self-sufficient person who is not afraid of physical activity or picking my own ways. Still, as a 7-year old in winter with a heavy bagpack, I hated it.
I bet it’s in a Republican shithole city in a Republican shithole state?
I don’t even have to check
Rural NC
Ive literally never heard a good news story out of NC.
Was the driver driving a child-killing American truck? If so, both the driver and car company should be charged with voluntary manslaughter.
They knew this was going to happen, yet they still bought and produced the child-killing tank.
Look, americans are proud R strategists. Maybe you sluggish europeans dont know what that means, but we need ways to cull the weak before we waste too nany resources on useless eaters, so designated zones and tools, in/with which it’s considered okay to murder children are an absolute necessity. Doing it with our cars, integrqting it into our transit system, more than makes up for the loss of efficiency from not using trains and bikes. So how do YOU propose we murder children, then, huh?
Do you think we should just stop killing children on purpose? Fucking yankeephobic eurotrash.
This some serious bullshit not even the cops can’t be that heartless … Oh wait the parents are black … in North Carolina …
Also, there are designated child culling zones.
Racism explains a lot of court decisions in the US. Jim Crow laws never truly went away.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…I was riding my bicycle alone at age 7.
