How do you get convicted of vehicular homicide when you weren't even driving a car? By crossing a dangerous state road in Cobb County. Raquel Nelson, whose 4-year old child was killed as the family attempted to cross from the bus stop to their apartment on Austell Road, was convicted last week of vehicular homicide, reckless conduct, and failing to yield when crossing outside a crosswalk.
Nelson, who has two other children, could now spend more time in jail than the hit-and-run driver whose car plowed into the child. What are the prosecutor and judge trying to prove by blaming the victim?
Nelson's conviction has stirred national outrage, with scores of blogs as well as several petitions calling for Cobb County to show leniency. Here's a sample:
Prosecuting the victim, absolving the perpetrators
When design kills: The criminalization of walking
Cobb prosecution of grieving mother becomes rallying cry for pedestrians Georgia: Don't Punish Pedestrians for Drivers' Mistakes!
Jerry Guy, the hit-and run driver, confessed the next day to having had three or four beers and using two prescription pain medications prior to driving. He was also blind in his left eye, which meant he had virtually no peripheral vision on that side. Guy had two previous hit-and-run convictions in 1997, both on the same day. After A.J. Nelson was killed, Guy was initially charged with vehicular homicide, cruelty to children and hit-and-run. But after pleading guilty to hit-and run, the other charges were dropped. After serving six months in prison, he was released in October. Raquel Nelson now faces up to 36 months in prison.
It's easy to point the finger at Guy. But the agencies responsible for designing roads and locating bus stops also bear responsibility for this crash.
In the section of Austell Road approaching Austell Circle, where the bus stop was located, the installation of a left turn lane had increased the width of the four-lane divided highway to five lanes. It also narrowed the median to just 3 feet.
On the night of the crash, everyone who exited the bus made it to the median safely. If the bus stop had been located just 140 feet to the north, the family would have been standing on a 16 foot wide median as it waited for a safe gap in southbound traffic. This would have given Raquel Nelson a much better chance of controlling her 4-year old son as they waited to cross.
In addition, the final leg of their crossing would have been two lanes instead of three.
When Mr. Guy's vehicle plowed into A.J., he was in the lane closest to the sidewalk. If the bus stop had been located properly, the child probably would have made it to the sidewalk by the time Mr. Guy sped by.
It's true that the Nelsons weren't in a crosswalk when they attempted to cross the street. But the stop where the family attempted to cross the street is located three-tenths of a mile from the nearest crosswalk, the equivalent of three city blocks. No one would walk 1500 feet to cross the street, so Raquel's decision to cross where the bus let her family off was hardly a "gross deviation from the standard of care which a reasonable person would exercise in this situation."
Cobb County needs to focus on creating safe crossings at bus stops. Expensive trials targeting the victim of a dangerous bus stop location and an impaired driver are a waste of taxpayer money.
|