top 71 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 245 points 1 month ago (14 children)

The reasoning behind it:
"Lack of Proof for Severe Negligence: Under Dutch law (Artikel 6 Wegenverkeerswet), a heavy prison sentence for a fatal traffic accident requires proof of gross negligence or recklessness (schuld)."

"No Evidence of Excessive Speed: Investigators could not legally prove that the driver was speeding excessively or that speed was the definitive cause of the vehicle losing control."

"Lesser Offense Applied: The court convicted him under a lighter traffic article (Artikel 5) for failing to keep his vehicle under continuous control rather than aggravated manslaughter or fatal recklessness, which capped the legal punishment guidelines significantly."

The original 120-hour sentence was itself overturned upon appeal in September 2015. The higher appeals court concluded that excessive speed was legally proven, sentencing the driver to 15 months in prison and a four-year driving ban.

In 2020 the traffic laws were overhauled to increase penalties and expand what constituted reckless driving. A penalty points system was also implemented.

  • source
  • hideshow 14 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Did the chair thrower get off as justified anger?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Sadly no info on the chair thrower.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 20 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Found it!

    The father  was not charged, prosecuted, or punished for throwing the chair.  The Dutch Public Prosecution Service and the presiding judge officially chose not to press charges or seek legal penalties against him, explicitly citing extreme emotional duress and immense grief, stating that they completely understood his reaction given the profound trauma of losing his two-year-old daughter and his parents in the crash. 

    https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2014/11/22/vader_die_stoel_naarrechtergooidenietvervolgd-1-2156081/

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [+] -10 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    In 2020 the traffic laws were overhauled to increase penalties and expand what constituted reckless driving.

    why do they always use weasel words ? all the evidence you need is a dead person, you killed someone, ipso facto you weren't paying attention ,automatic manslaughter charge. Murder would have a higher bar. eg

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-08/woman-charged-with-manslaughter-over-trevor-fleet-death/107241342

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    There are legitimate accidents, even if most are preventable. Humans are all too fallible.

    I’m at work so can’t watch video but excessive enough speed should be all you need. In my state, +30mph constitutes a major accident as far as insurance premiums go.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Not quite that simple.

    I'm one of the few drivers who always drives as if expecting the unexpected. I try to never even put myself in a situation where someone could jump out in front of my car and die (by slowing down when passing pedestrians for example).

    But that being said, there is only so much I can do. Maybe some day one of you retards will get yourselves killed and use my vehicle to do it. I don't want to be held accountable for your follies.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] -5 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    So you think the 2 grandparents hid somewhere and then jumped with their bikes and their toddler grandchild in their arms in front of the speeding car?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    He didn't say "in this case, it's clear that..." he said "all the evidence you need is a dead person." Pedestrians can never be at fault? BRB I'm gonna go jump in front of a car and set my family up for life

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Pedestrians can never be at fault

    I'd go as far as almost never.

    Like if you can present dashcam footage that the pedestrian hid out of sight and jumped in front of you with no warning while you were not driving too fast for the conditions (which might or might not mean going significantly slower than the posted limit), then that should be taken in to account.

    Outside of that? Yeah. Pedestrian being at fault should require incontrovertible proof that the pedestrian deliberately tricked you into being a part of their suicide attempt.

    The person not in control of a two ton death machine should not be required to constantly watch out for murderous ecocidal narcissists. All the extra alertness and awareness needed to keep people safe from cars should be 100% on the drivers.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 112 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    I assume she won't give him any punishment... If vehicular homicide is 120h community service, and the chair this guy threw didn't even hit anything, I mean.

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 193 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    If you want to get away with murder, do it with a car.

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 129 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

    Looking at you Anne Sacoolas, a name that should be infamous throughout the Western world.

    For those who don't know, this piece of crap was driving on the wrong side of the road after leaving a US base in the UK and through her extremely negligent driving killed a teenager on a moped. Instead of answering for her crime, she fled like the spineless excuse for a human being she is back to the US on a diplomatic passport. Seeing as we're basically America's Belarus, she never got close to seeing the inside of a British prison and the US actively refused to send her back. If you work for US intelligence you are literally allowed to kill British people in cars with impunity, they'll even come out and bat for you when you're caught.

    There may be no hell but I hope the rest of her days are as close to it as possible, but her actions reveal a callous moral vacuum of a person who no doubt only feels good about getting away with it. Shame on her name forever, shame on the US government for protecting her, and shame on the British government for folding like tissue paper instead of heeding its duty to seek justice for its citizens.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 36 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    They also didn't go after Russia after they used weapons of mass destruction on British soil.

    Rich people don't care as long as it's not their money being hurt.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago

    Don't even get me started, in another age the negligence with respect to Russia and its influence would be tantamount to treason. In my view Burnham must restore confidence by doing the Russia Report properly.

    Also morbid fact, when I took my A-level in physics a question on the paper involved the murder of Litvinenko by the Russian government. If I remember correctly, the question was about the nature of alpha radiation and its property of being relatively benign outside the body but disasterous to inhale or ingest, plus some calculations on the dose the poor bastard was exposed to.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 71 points 1 month ago

    Necessary contempt of court is awesome and rarely heard of. Chair throw was justified.

  • source
  • [–] 71 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    The easiest ways to get away with murder is to hit someone with your car or be a cop.

  • source
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 20 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    And I wonder why I have so much anxiety while driving while other fuckers seem to be totally cool being insane.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I'm terrified to drive a car.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Honestly, I want a car driven by (a smart) AI, with the vehicle itself designed to be heavily armored and without windows. Just cameras, each put in a spot to allow the car to see around corners, to have a high view of the roads in every direction, maybe some echolocation and infravision.

    I don't want to ever drive, because it makes me feel ill. Trying to figure out how to not cause some sort of disaster, is just not fun.

    If it were possible, I would use a teleporter to skip driving outright.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Don't even have to be a cop. Just shoot an unarmed kid wearing a hoodie.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Zimmerman

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago*

    Right, the easiest way to get away with murder is to be white and have your victim be black. All the others are heavily contingent on skin colors too, but the next easiest one would be to be wealthy, followed by being a cop.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 54 points 1 month ago

    A friend of mine, Jessica Bullen was killed by a driver looking at the roof of their mouth in the rearview mirror when he plowed into her. The facts were not dispute. No jail time for the driver.

  • source
  • [–] 37 points 1 month ago

    And i can understand that father 100%.

  • source
  • [–] 89 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    If in that position I don't think I would throw a chair at her , first I would go deal with the guy that killed my family and is out on the street...

    If the judicial system can't provide an adequate solution, eventually people will just solve things themselves. Which to some extent already happens, depending where you live

  • source
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 80 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    That's exactly right... the quickest way to get a normal, law abiding citizen, to become a "terrorist" is to take his family and deny him justice

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I've been in that sort of position. I'm continually struggling. Maybe it's the adhd talking, but the absence of justice is truly aggravating.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    The killer is not out on the street, though. The next level of the court system corrected the sentence to more than one year of jailtime.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 25 points 1 month ago*

    A couple of weeks ago a 19 year old got 8 months prison for killing a pregnant woman with his car. He was going 120 in a 50 km/h zone. The Dutch judicial system is way too lenient when it comes to sentencing man slaughter by car.

    https://www-moordplekken-nl.translate.goog/nieuws/ali-a-19-veroordeeld-8-maanden-cel-doodrijden-zwangere-vrouw-toepad-rotterdam?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=nl&_x_tr_pto=wapp

  • source
  • [–] 72 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Totally out of bounds. They should have hit the judge with a car, obviously

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 47 points 1 month ago

    I would run her down in my car for the low low cost of 120 hours of community service

  • source
  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Watch him get a worse punishment, too. (Not saying what he did is okay.)

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 28 points 1 month ago

    at his sentencing he could say "I'm sorry, I've learned my lesson. next time, instead of throwing a chair, I'll run over the judge's family instead, since that'll only get me 120h of community service."

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 45 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Crikey, if I were that judge I'd be very cautious for the rest of my life for handing out such a sentence.

    Can the parents/family appeal? Because if not then life isn't worth much.

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 60 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    The driver got 15 months in jail and a 4 year driving ban in the end. Which is still pretty low, especially since the article said he didn't show any sign of remorse.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 18 points 1 month ago

    Shit like this is why a TV series like Dexter could exist. Some people are walking around just fine with themselves after committing a heinous act. If it was an accident, fine, don't hate yourself forever, forgive yourself eventually, but showing no signs of remorse is something only a trashfire of a person could do

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    I'm coming to the awareness perhaps it never was. And I'm not sure where that leadsbeyond, "What makes human life more valuable than plant and animal life (other than the fact we're humans and kind of biased)?"

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    So odd that this thing that happened 12 years ago is getting the rounds so effectively right now. All over reddit and of course all over Lemmy too. Really shows how easy it is for repost bots to control narratives.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    that's fucking bullshit.

    sorry I killed your kid, love. oh me? yeah I got out early on account of becoming a daddy myself. sorry about killing your kid. I'm gonna jet and make some memories with my kid now. byeeee....

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)
  • [–] 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    That one woman laughing her ass off. Probably the stenographer, thinks the judge is a cuntface.

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments
    view more: next ›
    55 comments in c/fuckcars@lemmy.world view that post