Back in 2023, a driver in a pickup truck plowed through a group of cyclists in Arizona, killing two and injuring 11 more. Last week, that driver plead guilty in court — but only to reduced, misdemeanor charges. He's on the hook for $2,500 in fines, 60 hours of community service, and between six months and one year behind bars. Two people are dead, others have had to relearn how to walk, and this is the only penalty.
The driver plead guilty to "Causing serious physical injury or death by a moving violation," according to Arizona's Family, a vehicle-specific charge that gives lesser penalties to those who injure or kill with cars than with other objects or weapons. Rather than two counts of manslaughter, which Arizona defines as "Recklessly causing the death of another person" and carries a penalty of up to 21 years in prison per charge, killing with a vehicle is seen as much more tolerable by the powers that be.
The ethics of the American penal system, a system incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world and does so with private, for-profit prisons, is a separate topic here. Whether this driver deserves prison is as much a question as whether any person truly deserves prison, especially when rehabilitative justice has shown to be more effective in stopping real-world crime, which is a debate far beyond the scope of our humble little car blog. What is within our purview, though, is the legal idea that wounding or killing people is somehow more okay when it's done with a vehicle than with a knife or a fist.
This driver is getting off easy for the deaths and injuries he caused. But he didn't write Arizona Revised Statutes Title 28 Section 672, Causing Serious Physical Injury or Death by a Moving Violation — the problems run deeper than one person's specific court case. Our legal system loves cars, it wants to protect drivers, and we'll keep seeing cases like this until things change on a more fundamental level. Don't be angry that one driver got a light sentence for running down cyclists. Be angry that the system bends to give drivers, as a whole, lighter sentences.