With Liberty And Justice For All...

I was reading an article about a man who was killed while riding a motorcycle. It doesn't matter where it happened, or who he was, because the story is always the same:

Someone in a car turned left in front of him, he died, and the driver of the car was given a minor citation.

The penalty for taking a human life because of indifference and carelessness is about fifty bucks in most states.

It's kind of sad, especially since you know if it was someone riding their politically correct bicycle, or some sproggie in a crosswalk, they'd find something serious to charge the person who did the killing with. But this? It's "just" a biker.

Granted, motorcyclists have an image problem. When people think "motorcycle," they think "Harley-Davidson" and "Hell's Angels." That's like saying that all gay men talk with a lisp and use the word "fabulous" in every other sentence. Those are the ones you notice, but they're not necessarily the mainstream.

It's the same with motorcyclists. For every outlaw biker, there's two dozen aging chubby hippie professionals whose "gang" is the Harley Owners Group. Then there's another fifty (or more) motorcyclists that don't even ride a Harley.

Why doesn't anyone ever think of them when the conversation turns to motorcycles? Well, because they're not the ones who are having a shoot-out in a casino in Laughlin, or the ones involved in a huge meth bust, or even the noisy, smelly ones with the loud pipes rolling down the streets of your town.

So everyone gets lumped in with the scum, and thus when a good man dies, the response is, "Oh well, it was just a biker," when it was far more likely to have been a responsible, upstanding citizen whose friends and family are devastated.

It wouldn't surprise me if the grieving friends and relatives of a fallen motorcyclist wanted the person who killed him drawn and quartered and left for the buzzards. And that's understandable, but it's not going to happen. Even when breaking traffic laws results in death, we don't punish those people the same as we do other types of killers.

But I really think most people would agree that if drawing and quartering is too severe a penalty, a fifty dollar traffic ticket is far too light a punishment for indifference and carelessness that took a human life.

A good jumping-off point for this discussion is the American Motorcyclist Association's Justice For All campaign. They ask the question:

"What is a reasonable penalty for a car driver who kills or seriously injures a motorcyclist, bicyclist, pedestrian, or even another car driver?"

The AMA's proposal, involving license suspensions and steep fines, is a step in the right direction. I don't think it goes far enough, though. I mean, you can go to jail for driving more than twenty miles per hour over the speed limit, but there's no jail time if you run a stop sign and kill somebody?

*Cuckoo! Cuckoo!*

So I'd like to offer Danny A. Moose's counter-proposal. Along with the fines and license suspensions outlined, causing serious bodily harm should get you sixty days in jail. And causing death(s) should get you 364 days in jail. (That keeps the confinement at the jail level rather than prison, which is too nasty a place for careless fucktards who are otherwise good people.)

And I've got another proposal, that may sound kind of harsh, but it would certainly make sure that those who kill while driving never lose sight of how careful one must be when operating a motor vehicle.

I propose that each state issue a "skull & crossbones" license plate to those who kill while failing to obey the rules of the road. Require that the driver sport this plate on any vehicle he operates, for a period of five years.

Does that sound cruel? It's not meant to be. It's only meant to remind the driver who killed that it was his sloppy driving that took a life. And it's meant to remind the rest of you just how fragile life is, how often fatal accidents happen, and exactly how careful you have to be when you're driving.

Nobody listens to the moose about stuff like this, but you should. People will keep dying until the penalties for driving like an asshole and then killing someone are more than a love tap on the buttocks.

This has all been very depressing. I'm going to go rub myself on a Bourget or something until I feel better.

Oh, one more thing before I go. Rest in peace, Motorcycle Dude.

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