Except people frequently do get charged with murder for pedestrian fatalities, all over the world in fact. If you can prove intent, it's murder.
This is a rubbish take.
this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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As a person who spent more than a few days riding around in the back of an Amp-a-Lamps, I've never been to any kind of "accident" scene that was truly an "accident". If you really take the time to look at the scene and trace your finger backwards, you can always see the point where someone got stupid and started the following chain of stupidity. Sometimes others join in the stupid. Sometimes only one person is responsible for the whole stupid. And you are adjudged at least 10% at fault just for being there.
This applies to all those little/minor "accidents" also. Y'all do the stupid. Even me.
Puppies and toddlers have accidents.
Vehicles have collisions.
Would you call a single car roll-over a collision?
If it collided with something that caused it then sure, but it could also just be called a rollover. The whole point is to avoid the word accident as it implies no fault when the fault lies between the drivers and the road design/ rules.
The term accident does not imply no fault.
For example, I accidentally spilled my coffee.
It collided with the environment, so yes.
My brother unintentionally incinerated himself when he put his car into a tree sideways, I don’t consider it an accident.
I'm sorry for your loss.
Literally my friend was killed on his bike by a tow truck driver. The driver got like probation or something, maybe. And the company he works for has "move over and slow down, it's the law Tow Lives Matter"
Assuming those stickers weren't put on due to your friends death, I'm okay with them. Tow truck divers have to work on the side of highways and some have been struck and injured or killed on the job. Cars and their infrastructure suck, but we should still try to protect those who have to work on our roadways.
We can slow down and move over for both cyclists and tow trucks. It doesn't need to be exclusive.
Why was the car guy named "Singer"? Was there an infamous hit-and-runner named Singer?
I think they misspelled "Sicko"
This is so oversiplyfied that it's basically just a lie.
So if you're defending yourself or others from kidnappers (an epidemic these days), use a vehicle. At least that's what I got out of this.
Wtf?
- Premeditated Intent: Murder
- Intent without premeditation. Heat of the moment: 2nd degree Murder
- Doing something you weren't supposed to and killing someone: involuntary homicide
- Failing to do something you were supposed to and killing someone: negligent manslaughter.
Who made this meme (and topic) and why is everyone so ignorant of the law? This almost certainly is vehicular manslaughter case or... If it can be suggested that it's the pedestrian maybe was partially at fault it might be negligent manslaughter (ex: failed to stop when someone jumped out).
In the US, deaths deaths cars are treated less harshly than deaths involving firearms. One common example used to teach about jury biases is deaths due to drunk driving. Many jury members can empathize with driving drunk because many Americans have driven after drinking, even if they were under the legal limit
IDK if you should be calling other people ignorant if you didn't even know that much
"less harshly" is not what the meme is OP responding to is saying. The meme is saying "vehicular manslaughter goes unpunished and you won't even be arrested" which isn't true at all.
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You can kill someone with a gun and have it be called an accident. You can also intentionally run someone down with your vehicle and have it be called vehicular homicide.
We can say "fuck cars" without false equivalencies.
To me whether this comic is being fair hinges on stuff like, how many people are being intentionally murdered with cars but the killer gets off easy because of the method? How many accidental gun deaths are prosecuted more harshly than they should be? I don't actually know the answer to these. It does seem relevant that guns are a tool designed for killing.
When dangerous design is inherent to the system and deaths are treated as the cost of doing business on the roadways, when does it go from accidental into societial negligence?
Guns may be a tool designed for killing, but cars are certainly able to kill as well and should be treated as such. Pointing a gun at someone is dangerous. Pointing a moving car at someone is dangerous. We are gentler on car accidents because almost everyone relies on them and they are so normalized.
Pointing a gun at someone is dangerous. Pointing a moving car at someone is dangerous. We are gentler on car accidents because almost everyone relies on them and they are so normalized.
Is that a wrong approach though? I don't have to point a gun at anyone to visit family, but practically I do have to get behind the wheel of a car. That can be fixed by being rich, but not everyone can be rich. The reason people drive despite the inherent risk to themselves and others is more about infrastructure than poor personal choices. I think it might be better to focus on solving the infrastructure problem than being more willing to put people in prison for driving mistakes, because the latter isn't going to deter people from driving when most of us basically have to in order to live a normal life.
Like you said, it's societal negligence. With guns, owning one is truly optional for almost everyone, and I think it's reasonable to impose a much higher standard of personal responsibility on their use than with basically anything else. If you have a gun you better be capable of always using it correctly under pressure or else you should not have chosen to have one and criminal liability makes perfect sense.
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Sure. But you know they aren't as close as this makes it. One tool was meant to take life as the primary function. The other to get someplace.
Woman falls down stairs while carrying her baby, she killed him, accident. Woman throws her baby off the balcony, she killed him, murder. Both cases the baby was killed, both sad. But they are different.
The difference in intent makes sense. The difference in primary function does not, killing a person with a kitchen knife is no better than with a gun.
The problem with car accidents is that it’s difficult to know the intent of a person, especially carelessness kills a lot more people via cars than via kitchen knifes, and we can’t know for sure when it was an honest mistake by the driver.
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I think if you ignore the intention of the manufacturer for a moment and focus on the acts of the individual, they'll seem closer.
Both cars and guns are dangerous devices. Both can be used for intentional murder.
Both guns and cars are so dangerous that they should not ever be used carelessly. In fact, it would be the height of recklessness to use either one without constant vigilance. You could easily kill somebody.
But with guns, people generally accept that there is a wrong way to use them, and that it's your fault if you don't have trigger discipline, or if you ever point the barrel at someone without thinking.
On the other hand, the same cannot be said about cars. Just look how people react when you mention defensive driving, a system of disciplines that make driving safer for both the driver and anyone else near the road.
People are so used to getting away with driving poorly that they are willing to accept deaths rather than even hearing about safer driving habits.
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Accidental and intentional killing should both be discouraged.
Discouraging accidental death is not achieved via harsh punishment. It's done through safer design and education
Safe design should be done a lot more. I am actually generally not a friend of harsh punishment, but the people who design unsafe roads need to get their act together.
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This is a bad take lol. You can be charged with manslaughter if it's an accident and murder if you were trying to kill someone with your car.
Blatantly wrong takes like this just increase the cognitive dissonance between the anti car movement and everyone else.
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I suppose when you remove intent and literally all other context, this makes sense.
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It's worse than that.
You don't generally blame someone for being shot by a random stranger.
But kill a cyclist or pedestrian by car? What did or didn't they do?!?! 🧐
Its a strange world were somehow we have been conditioned to belive travel on foot or cycling is somewhat "lesser" then travel by car.
Hopefully the notion of "Car is King" dies one day, and we build cities once again for the people living in them.
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I think if you kill somebody through negligent discharge of a firearm the charge would be manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, not murder. And I think that if you intentionally run a person over with your car you'd get charged with murder.
Here the charge is nothing.
https://www.thewhig.com/feature/kingston-ontario-cyclist-fatality-police
If you hit someone with a hammer, it's assault and you go to jail. If you drop a hammer on someone accidentally, it was an accident and nothing happens to you. See how dumb that sounds?
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