Drunken driver who snapped photo going 141 mph before deadly collision imprisoned for 17 years

Absolutely terrible story. Really heartbreaking. What an awful man and he only got 17 years in jail, he’ll do around 8.5 and be a free man.

[quote] What an awful man and he only got 17 years in jail, he’ll do around 8.5 and be a free man.

And the worst part is that these killers always seem to live, don't they?

Roads feel more dangerous than ever. I heard recently that auto collisions are becoming more serious and more fatal again, but the mechanism of these fatalities is unclear. Because of the engineering of modern vehicles, their speed and capacity for rapid acceleration, combined with advanced safety mechanisms (knee, shoulder and side impact airbags), the trauma of a high speed collision is now generalized and harder to treat. Essentially your organs are dislodged from the connective tissue that anchors and supports them, like an egg shaken violently until the yolk and albumin mix.

We are really “removed” from the physics of motion in most cars, and also super distracted. The technology is advancing and that’s usually a good thing, yet if that technology makes you overconfident or inattentive, we might see more serious accidents. My elderly parents live in a beautiful country village, but it’s actually dangerous to walk along the roads there because people drive so fast in the morning, with a giant hot coffee and fiddling with cell phones and a huge touch screen (or two) in the center of their car’s console. You hear a siren and lose power a few mornings each month because another driver lost control of their vehicle and hit a telephone pole, or caused others to swerve off into the road’s soft shoulder.

It’s so upsetting when a cautious driver is traumatized by an inattentive one, and often the driver at fault is uninsured or under-insured, so your own coverage might have to pick up the difference. That’s partly why insurance rates are going up, in consideration of the number of uninsured drivers. A pretty rotten situation. I’d hate to be harmed by someone being reckless. This clown photographing his speedometer isa whole order of magnitude more shocking and serious.

I don't think he should go prison for 17 years. It was an incredibly reckless thing to do but it was unintentional. He didn't rape anyone or commit an acid attack.

He should spend life in prison. Drunk driving is treated far too leniently.

He killed two fucking people R4 - all by his own selfish, stupid decisions and actions.

Although I do not agree with R4, I can't help but suspect that there was something more going on behind the scenes (i.e., a political motive) that led to this conviction. You rarely see child molestors, homeless ppl who have commited a random act of violence, etc. getting this kind of sentence.

With that said, good riddance.

Bullshit R4. Driving while drunk is an intentional choice. Driving at 141MPH is a choice. Fuck him.

And of COURSE it was an Audi. The official car of sociopaths.

What do we do about drunk drivers, then?

Many of them are habitual.

This case goes beyond the pale.

From the description of his behaviour, I'd have thought he expected to die in the crash himself. Clearly he also expected to kill whoever was in the other vehicle, but he probably didn't know anything beyond that it had a driver.

Most suicides choose a stationary object, but a moving one is more likely to kill you, if your empathy is low enough not to care about the collateral damage, or if you're unhinged enough to actively want to take others with you.