Sometimes the total reckless stupidity of those who drive big rig trucks is beyond belief. This story pushes the limits of sanity.
It’s a no-brainer that people shouldn’t drink and drive. Yet fatigue and/or distraction in the line of a driver’s sight are even more dangerous. Combine the two behind the wheel of a truck and the combination is lethal.
In a tragic accident, truck driver Thomas Wallace of Brook Park, Ohio, was watching pornographic movies on his laptop last week while driving on the New York State Thruway in Buffalo, N.Y., according to the Associated Press. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/27/AR2010012704463.html
Julie Stratton, 33, a mother of two from Snyder, N.Y., had hit a deer on the highway and her vehicle was disabled. She had called 911 for help right before Wallace hit her car with his rig. Stratton was killed.
Wallace, 45, was charged with second-degree manslaughter in Stratton’s death. He also allegedly broke federal trucking regulations by sleeping no more than four of 27 hours before the fatal accident, according to AP. Porn to keep him awake? See http://semi-accident.com for regulations on sleep requirements for truckers. Those law are there to protect the public safety. It is almost credible that Wallace did something so catastrophically stupid because he was so fatigued. No excuse, but a lesson to be learned by all. That the mother he killed wasn’t where he expected her to be is precisely why we have such laws. It is not the normal reaction time which is changed by fatigue, but the situation reaction, the reaction to that which isn’t expected.
Don’t waste time on the lesser included offenses. This is murder. Simply charge him with that.