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Woman hit and killed on Greentree road

Judging from the pictures, the car was not even in a traffic lane. Does anyone know if that is a bike lane there?
look-out
2015-09-23 14:38:14
Tragic and terrible. And, unless they can prove the driver was using his phone he'll probably get off scott-free. Probably even then.
salty
2015-09-23 18:07:03
She was walking to a bus stop. That makes this a transit issue, in my book. Speed probably a factor. I'm sure the experts will be able to figure out how fast the car was going. Distracted driving probably a factor. She was walking on an 8-foot-wide shoulder. The guy's cell phone should have been immediately confiscated. If it wasn't, why wasn't it?
stuinmccandless
2015-09-23 21:52:05
Look up the law on searches and seizures of cell phones; that should answer your question.
jmccrea
2015-09-23 21:57:03
Confiscating the phone itself may not be necessary, but if it takes changing a law to do so, it seems reasonable to automatically subpoena the usage records for any account known to be in the driver's possession, or to a device known to be in the car at the time. A crime happened, someone was killed. This is evidence toward investigating fault. Seems like a no-brainier to me.
stuinmccandless
2015-09-24 07:18:46
AFAIK, it's completely legal to subpoena phone records...you don't even need the phone itself, just legal authority and access to the phone company. However, per the Supreme Court in 2014, it is not cool to search an arrestee's cell phone without a warrant.
reddan
2015-09-24 07:30:05
Since we are on a relevant tangent - if a driver is looking at their phone, but the phone isn't actively downloading data from the cell tower (like reading a long news story, blog post, etc.) would there be a log file on the PHONE showing that the screen was active during the crash or is there only the cell tower (data/voice download) log? The real issue for me if I was a juror sitting in judgment would be - is there an active call or is the screen on the phone turned on. This is the indicator that the driver was interacting with the phone (and thus distracted).
marko82
2015-09-24 08:19:22
@Marko: nope, no logging of such things, unless some form of unusual and low-level spyware had been previously installed.
reddan
2015-09-24 08:35:40
FYI, from the Electronic Freedom Foundation: "Even if you're arrested, police can only search your phone under limited circumstances. After a person has been arrested, the police generally may search the items on her person and in her pockets, as well as anything within her immediate control, automatically and without a warrant. But the Supreme Court has ruled that police cannot search the data on a cell phone under this warrant exception." And IANAL but I suspect that the only way the police would be able to get a warrant to search the phone itself was if they could show there was some reason to suspect that the phone had been used in commission of a crime. So, if someone saw the driver looking down at their phone before the accident, maybe, but probably not just on the supposition: "They hit a pedestrian on a wide shoulder; they must have been texting."
jonawebb
2015-09-24 08:39:42
@reddan - not so sure about that, android devices have system logfiles and I assume ios does as well. Whether there's enough information in there to prove whether someone was interacting with the phone, I don't know. IIRC there are things like "screen on" events, application starting, etc - but then again my phone sometimes turns its screen on and starts apps sometimes when it's in my pocket...
salty
2015-09-24 09:32:32
Seems like if someone has just killed someone with a vehicle, it should be easy enough to obtain a warrant through proper channels and just look.
edmonds59
2015-09-24 09:37:59
@salty: the Android stuff is viewable via logcat over adb, but that (at least with recent versions of the OS) requires an unlocked phone, a USB cable , and a laptop with the Android tools installed. If the phone is locked, there's no way to accept the USB connection, so no way to access it via adb. It is a good point, though...depending on the vendor, touchscreen events may be logged...I hadn't thought of that.
reddan
2015-09-24 10:03:16
Thanks for the info guys. It would be nice to be able to access this type of data after a crash, while still protecting an individuals privacy in other circumstances. I wonder how many more decades will go by before we figure this whole thing out.
marko82
2015-09-24 10:28:03
It doesn't have to be unlocked, you just have to enable developer mode. The former would wipe the storage while the latter can be enabled after the fact - although I don't know whether having developer mode enabled affects the verbosity of what's in the log. Point being, I think that law enforcement could do all of this after the fact... but I still don't know that it's enough to prove "they were definitely using the phone". If the user actually sent something (text message, email, FB post/message, etc) then the timestamp from the service they sent it to should be pretty damning, but I'm not sure about detecting whether they were reading something. As far as I'm concerned, it should be immaterial. Running someone over should be damning evidence enough that the driver did something wrong, I don't care if they were stoned, drunk and texting with one hand while putting on makeup with the other, or if they weren't doing any of that - it's inexcusable.
salty
2015-09-24 10:34:52
I haven't managed to fully flesh out or articulate my objections yet, but there's a part of me that bristles at the need to affirmatively demonstrate fault on the part of a motorist in these cases. It's not like we're trying to prove that Motorist A hit Person B; that's already been established. But the underlying message seems to be "if we can't collect evidence to prove that the driver was distracted, they're assumed to be liability-free"; I think that underlying assumption (that motor vehicle collisions are things which just happen, and operators shouldn't be held accountable unless they were demonstrably negligent) is what really needs to be addressed. Or, to put it more simply: the motorist should be responsible for demonstrating why the collision was not their fault. (And rainbow-farting unicorns should deliver my pizza, too.)
reddan
2015-09-24 10:36:48
@salty: We were typing at the same time, and I think we're in full agreement. :-)
reddan
2015-09-24 10:38:19
indeed :)
salty
2015-09-24 10:39:35
"Or, to put it more simply: the motorist should be responsible for demonstrating why the collision was not their fault." The problem, so to speak, is that placing the burden of proof on an accused is utterly and completely unconstitutional. I don't like distracted, negligent and/or criminal conduct by drivers any more than anyone else, but there is no need to revert to legal principles that rightly exist in the ash bin of history, along with things like trials by ordeal, execution by torture, secret trials, etc.
jmccrea
2015-09-24 11:27:24
Hmm... trials by ordeal for distracted drivers... just saying... Let's throw them in the Mon. If they sink, one less distracted driver. If they float, I'm pretty sure that means they were texting, and can be dealt with.
jonawebb
2015-09-24 11:42:09
Ah, wasn't the 17th century just grand...
stuinmccandless
2015-09-24 12:36:31
Quoth Jake:
The problem, so to speak, is that placing the burden of proof on an accused is utterly and completely unconstitutional. I don’t like distracted, negligent and/or criminal conduct by drivers any more than anyone else, but there is no need to revert to legal principles that rightly exist in the ash bin of history, along with things like trials by ordeal, execution by torture, secret trials, etc.
Completely fair, and I've stated my wishes poorly. I'm suggesting that the question of guilt has already been settled...Person A has admitted to hitting Person B. What I'm wishing for is a standard of default liability, similar to the Dutch system, wherein motorists who strike "more vulnerable" road users are considered at-fault unless they can demonstrate force majeure (like a pedestrian dropping in front of them). So, effectively, what I'd like to see is more akin to the presumption of fault when rear-ending another vehicle. (I'd also like to stipulate that it's perfectly reasonable for extenuating circumstances to be used to ameliorate said liability...this just means that "I didn't see them" is no longer an easy way to establish one's blamelessness). Of course, the likelihood of anything similar to the Dutch system being implemented here is, uh, poor. I dunno...fundamentally, I would simply like anyone who operates dangerous equipment around the general public to be held to a higher standard of behavior. At least in some localities in the US, the test of liability for damages due to accidental firearms discharge was not whether the discharge was accidental, but whether the defendant was free from blame...I'd like to see that same presumption extended to the use of motor vehicles.
reddan
2015-09-24 13:49:33
I think "innocent until proven guilty" is a red herring in this case and others like it. The facts of what occurred definitely need to be proven, but that is not in doubt here - Person X was driving a vehicle that struck and killed person Y. It's the notion that doing that is acceptable ("just an accident") unless person X was doing some other "bad" thing that is the problem. Replace "driving a vehicle" with "firing a bullet" and the expectations are different. They shouldn't be.
salty
2015-09-24 14:04:00
Aren't we once again mixing civil and criminal liability? The driver who rear-ends another vehicle is presumed to be at fault and their insurance will pay -- just as, I'm hoping, the driver who killed the pedestrian on Greenfield Road will be held at fault. But in neither case is the driver assumed to be criminally liable, and subject, say, to having their privacy invaded by forced cellphone search. I think, though, that the state could impose a "reasonable care" standard on drivers. If you kill or seriously injure a pedestrian or cyclist, through failure to exercise reasonable care, you could, for example, have your license suspended until you've taken a driver's ed class and been retested.
jonawebb
2015-09-24 14:05:55
Geez, I guess I should have reloaded before I hit "submit". This is getting scary :)
salty
2015-09-24 14:06:11
"Aren’t we once again mixing civil and criminal liability?" Yes, as well as two other issues: (1) complaints about cultural/societal ambivalence toward car crashes and their social harm; and (2) complaints about law enforcement priorities and the allocation of those resources.
jmccrea
2015-09-24 14:43:18
Here's Wikipedia's discussion of strict liability in criminal cases. "As the federal constitution entrenches a right of due process, the United States usually applies strict liability to only the most minor crimes or infractions. One example would be parking violations, where the state only needs to show that the defendant's vehicle was parked inappropriately at a certain curb. But serious crimes like rape and murder require some showing of culpability or mens rea.... A serious offense in which strict liability tends to show up is in drunk driving laws; the punishment tends to be given on a strict liability basis, with no mens rea requirement at all."
steven
2015-09-24 16:11:10
I feel powerless to stop the carnage, much as I do with a variety of lifestyle choices that lead to our destruction. The lifestyle choice here being unchecked privilege of continued half-ass, dangerous and deadly driving
sgtjonson
2015-09-24 19:56:08
@buffalo buffalo This intersection is confusing enough, to me, to warrant either some traffic calming measures, or a traffic light with sensors.
jason-pgh
2015-09-25 08:56:58
I'm not going to bother to look up what the punitive outcome is for "leaving the scene yadayada" but I'm confident it's not the deserved severe public ass-beating.
edmonds59
2015-09-25 09:11:07
First, the DRIVER is completely at fault here. But why is the speed limit 35 mph just 200 feet from this stop sign? https://goo.gl/maps/3wytDwdKom12
marko82
2015-09-25 09:18:00
I'm not sure what's confusing about it--it's a four-way stop. (There is a fifth leg, the aptly-named Auto Way, but it's a tiny, underused alley, and also one-way away from the intersection IIRC.) It is a bit over-wide, but I think the bigger problem is that Baum is signed 35mph---well, that and that this driver was drunk/on drugs, playing with their phone, or both...
epanastrophe
2015-09-25 09:18:23
I'm going to take a guess and say the guy who hit the woman doesn't have a clue what the speed limit is there and would ignore a lowered one anyways. As a general matter, drivers are horrendous about yielding to pedestrians at crosswalks. So even if this guy didn't realize he was blowing a stop sign, he should have yielded to the peds at a crosswalk, but since that is never enforced, like any other vehicle violations, it doesn't matter. I see two options. Enforce existing vehicle laws or create infrastructure that really hinders vehicle speed and increases ped/bike safety. I think BikePGH continually works on the latter
sgtjonson
2015-09-25 09:49:41
I agree with Pierce. Even if speed limits are lowered, no one pays attention to them, nor are they enforced at all. I think someone would get rear ended if they went the speed limit on city streets.
gg
2015-09-25 11:12:30
Idiot commenter on the CBS East Liberty news story proposes that bicyclists pay taxes, get licenses, and follow traffic laws like stopping at stop signs like motorists, INCHES BELOW THE STORY WHERE THE DRIVER RAN A STOP SIGN. Fucking. idiots.
edmonds59
2015-09-25 12:46:54
Someone on Reddit posted what they claim are the charges against the driver in yesterday's East Liberty incident:
75 § 3735.1 §§ A F2 AGGRAVATED ASSAULT BY VEHICLE WHILE DUI 09/24/2015 2 75 § 3742 §§ A F3 ACCIDENTS INVOLVING DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY 09/24/2015 3 75 § 3802 §§ A1* M DRIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL OR CONTROL 09/24/2015 4 75 § 3323 §§ B S STOP SIGNS AND YIELD SIGNS - DUTIES AT STOP SIGNS 09/24/2015 5 75 § 3736 §§ A S RECKLESS DRIVING 09/24/2015
As noted there, those are respectively a class 2 Felony, class 3 felony, a misdemeanor and a couple summary offenses. Leaving the scene doesn't seem to be listed, though I haven't followed up myself. Leaving the scene seems to be part of charge 2, 3742(a).
epanastrophe
2015-09-25 16:09:10