Reckless Imprudence

I got reminded of one of my biggest beefs regarding traffic collisions a few days ago when I read a news article regarding an incident involving a minibus, a people carrier and a scooter.  The news article stated that the driver of the scooter went about overtaking another scooter and a people carrier at high speed then ended up smacking into a minibus on the opposite lane.  The resulting impact ended the life of the dit who drove the scooter.  Sadly, the dit had a passenger who got thrown off the scooter and ended up under the people carrier.  Unfortunately, the passenger died too.

Call me insensitive for calling the scooter driver a dit, but he deserves it.  His actions caused the death of his passenger and total inconvenience to everyone else involved in the incident.  I am sure he and his passenger had no plans to kick the bucket that day, but his actions increased that possibility ten-fold until it became real.  Now, left to deal with the problem are the two drivers who were behind the wheel of the mini bus and the people carrier.  I am sure going to prison wasn’t on their travel checklist that day.  But because of this dit who thought he had the skills of a MotoGP champion, these poor, innocent individuals had to spend some time in the police station and be charged with reckless imprudence resulting in double homicide.

Why, in this totally skewed universe, is it the fault of the two drivers?  I am sure they were minding their own business, driving within the legal limits and within the confines of their lanes, when Wham! this dit decides to ruin their day by playing battering ram against a minibus.  And the result of his smart move caused his passenger to fly off the scooter and land right in front of the people carrier.  And as much as both drivers wanted to defy Newton’s laws of physics, they were too law abiding and couldn’t stop their momentum in time to break it.  And the third law came in, Murphy’s Law.  Now, these two drivers are suddenly accused of being responsible for the death of the dit and his passenger.

I am no legal counsel, nor do I plan to have a law degree, but there is something terribly wrong with that setup.  How can the fault of the incident transfer from the dit who drove the scooter, who was practicing reckless imprudence by driving very fast, zigzagging on the opposite lane, endangering the lives of everyone else, including his passenger, to the two drivers who were just unfortunately there when the dit decided, through his actions, to commit double homicide? 

A friend told me that it is standard procedure.  Our law enforcers are required to file a case against people involved in the incident, especially if they were the cause of the injury or death.  So, in a totally different scenario, say a person aims a gun at someone and fires, the other person gets hit but his avoiding action prompts the bullet to pass clean through him and end up killing an innocent bystander.  Do they charge the person for homicide since he channelled the bullet to the bystander by his actions?  See my point?

My theory on how this has become standard practice is simple.  Our traffic and law enforcers are so pea-brained that they developed the “two-wheel, no fault rule.”  They created the “motor man gud imong kontra, sir” argument and said it so many times that they actually started to believe in it until it became the standard.

You know what subject they should teach in the academy?  Common sense.  Because it takes common sense to realize that the dit who drove the scooter is responsible for the whole thing and the two drivers were just unfortunate victims of his stupidity.