Sad end to a tragic story

The guy who hit the Mennonite buggy last fall and killed three kids pled guilty. Nobody wins.
Daily News Story

Sounds like he got off easy.

Sounds like it. He never really tried to deny what he did,so maybe there was a plea deal there or something. Of course the Mennonite community forgave him and didn't want him prosecuted at all. They said he'd gone through enough.

Several years ago, just south of Maryville, MO, I was first on the scene where a car had creamed an Amish buggy from behind.

I couldn't have been more than a minute after it happened. The guy who hit them was still in his car. It was an elderly Amish couple. The old man was standing with a stunned look on his face. The horse was laying on its side on the shoulder of the road, and the lady was sitting in the middle of the road in a pile of kindling wood that had been the buggy. I knelt down and asked her if she was hurt. She replied she didn't know yet.

At that point, I reached for my phone and called 911 to report the whole thing. I gave 911 the coordinates off of my GPS unit, and told them it might not hurt to send an ambulance to be on the safe side. While I was on the phone with 911, the horse got up and ran down the road a ways. By then a couple more vehicles had stopped and the lady was on her feet and leaning against the side of a pickup.

At that point there wasn't any more I could do but stand around, and I was about a half hour behind where I intended to be at that time of the day, so I passed a few of my business cards around, wished them luck, and headed down the road.

When I pulled to a stop on the shoulder and saw all of that mess, though, I just knew there would be a couple of bodies in the middle of it. Thankfully, there weren't.

In my area the buggies are rarely marked ! They are out all hours of day and night. So far thank god I have been able to stay focused and spot them and get my car stopped ! I have even had them come out of their driveways onto the road without even slowing down and looking for oncoming traffic ! Had a school bus do that too ! and that was a really close one there !
I fear one of these days I will be just like this guy.

Misdemeanors won't buy him much time in the grey bar motel, if any.

People kill fellow drivers all the time and its written off as an accident with no charges filed at all. Old lady killed another old lady last week in Topeka when she stepped on the gas instead of the brake and drove though the front doors of a restaurant - no charges. It actually sounds like they charged him with everything they could legally charge him with.

rrlund,
thanks for posting the update. I agree with dhermesc, probably all they could charge him with and I suspect he's pretty sorry about it. However, the take away from this is:
"“It was determined that [b:7186a41d06]distracted driving[/b:7186a41d06] played a part in this crash,” Michigan State Police Lakeview Post Lt. Commander Kevin Sweeney told the Daily News. “T[b:7186a41d06]he suspect had been on his phone/internet prior to the crash[/b:7186a41d06]."

I used to see it everyday on my commute to/from work. Seems that the younger they are, the worse they are when it comes to text/phone use while driving. They all think it won't happen to them.

"“The suspect had been on his phone/internet prior to the crash. " In that case, sentence was too light!

(quoted from post at 09:16:32 08/17/18) rrlund,
thanks for posting the update. I agree with dhermesc, probably all they could charge him with and I suspect he's pretty sorry about it. However, the take away from this is:
"“It was determined that [b:cf8f34d009]distracted driving[/b:cf8f34d009] played a part in this crash,” Michigan State Police Lakeview Post Lt. Commander Kevin Sweeney told the Daily News. “T[b:cf8f34d009]he suspect had been on his phone/internet prior to the crash[/b:cf8f34d009]."

I used to see it everyday on my commute to/from work. Seems that the younger they are, the worse they are when it comes to text/phone use while driving. They all think it won't happen to them.

Click to expand...

Oh I don't know. Dropped a grand daughter off this morning and on the way had a guy in front of me slowing down and speeding up, weaving side to side. Got a chance to get around him. I know they guy, in his 60's, was on his cell phone.

As far as the guy in the news story? That's as bad as a DUI IMO!

Rick