from the looks of the car, the bike hit it sideways as if the biker was trying to lay it down.
Posted on 06/21/2014 7:23:03 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A woman who parked her car on a highway to rescue ducklings has been found guilty of causing the deaths of a motorcyclist and his daughter who slammed into her vehicle.
Emma Czornobaj was convicted by a jury on Friday on two counts of criminal negligence causing death, a charge that carries a maximum life sentence, and two counts of dangerous driving causing death, which comes with a maximum of 14 years in jail.
The 25-year-old was charged in the deaths of Andre Roy, 50, and his daughter Jessie, 16.
...
Czornobaj, a self-professed animal lover, told the court that she did not see the ducklings' mother anywhere and planned to capture them and take them home.
...
Her lawyer Marc Labelle said his client was stunned by the jury's decision. He said he may appeal.
'So now we are at the sentencing stage in this case. The question we have to ask is that considering the nature of the facts, it is rare that we have criminal negligence where there are no bad elements,' Labelle said.
'This was not a race. This was not a person who took a chance and drove drunk. This is not about someone who was speeding and took a risky maneuver.'
During the trial, witness Martine Tessier testified that she noticed parked car didn't have its hazards on and that the driver's door was open.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I have heard this happens more often than people care to think about.
Look. Her car has massive mechanical and electric failure, she can’t put on lights or get out of traffic. Not a crime. Accident.
She INTENTIONALLY stops in a high speed lane DOESNT PUT ON LIGHTS, NOT AN ACCIDENT. get it?
That has absolutely nothing to do with this and just because that woman wanted to help those ducks you are making a quantum leap in logic and thinking that does not apply.
Wonder what that makes me, I have stopped before to help a turtle across the road.
from the looks of the car, the bike hit it sideways as if the biker was trying to lay it down.
Well I now see from the pictures that this happened at night so that does change things some but even so she must have had her lights on. So surely if the people on that motorcycle had been paying attention you would think they would have slowed down and changed lanes.
How fast was that motorcycle going, looks like a good clip from the picture of that car.
isn't it illegal to stop on the highway unless it's an emergency???
I’m guessing the car was moved to the left for safety once investigators got there. The driver’s door could not have been open in the picture shown.
There are plenty of likely, valid reasons why the motorcyclist may not have seen the car until it was too late, so I don’t think one can automatically conclude that he wasn’t paying attention. The stopped car was dark, with no lights on, at night, so the only way that’s going to be noticed in time is if the driver is looking directly ahead 100% of the time, and no one drives that way.
So he may have been looking at a street sign, or checking a rearview mirror or a gas meter, or he may have been behind a ace that waited until the last minute to chance lanes. But the mere fact that he struck a dark car illegally stopped in the left lane does not mean he wasn’t paying attention.
Typo - meant to say behind a car (not behind a ace)
Yes thanks.
For sure. We don’t have all the facts and the article is clearly written to generate simpathy for this gal, but every driver has a responsibilityto operate at a speed he can observe and avoid hhazards. Her actions are definitely a factor in this crash, but the other driver caused when he ran into her car.
I think you have a point about society conditioning us to behave this way. You can actually get arrested on a felony for NOT stopping for ducks. You can pretty much guarantee that your mugshot will be on the front pages of all the papers as public enemy #1 if you ran over ducklings - even if you felt you might be endangering others behind you by hitting the brakes.
I almost rear-ended somebody on a back road a few years back because he stopped for a turtle crossing the road. I was coming around a curve and barely had time to stop as his car was in the middle of the road with the flashers on. He was one of those college professor types with the beard and glasses and he thought he was performing a great humanitarian service by picking up the turtle and carrying it across the road to the other side. Even though I almost slammed into his BMW and put myself in the hospital or worse (I've learned to just straddle the turtles and drive over them harmlessly).
I am not happy to see this woman go to jail, despite what happened. Maybe having her driver's license taken away for life would have been more appropriate.
When a friend of mine was driving on the freeway and slammed into a car that was stopped right in the middle of the lane just over the rise of a hill so she didn’t see it until it was too late, it was HER fault she was told by the Highway Patrol officers and the insurance company.
Was she driving In a Yugo?
Me too; what if a car was wrecked because the driver said he was avoiding a jogger on the highway. Is the jogger then liable?
Obvious case of a young lady with her head up her rectum. NOT uncommon, but 25 to life is a bit out there.
Seems to me the young lady will suffer her entire life the scene of those two people she was responsible for killing by her stupid, thoughtless act of compassion for those little ducks.
Sad, but the Catch-22 is if she is a liberal she will lie to herself in justification of her act of compassion, and have no remorse.
No one speaks for the dead, so I will.
“I was really looking forward to my motorcycle ride with my daughter. I don’t get to spend enough time with her. She’s growing up so fast! Well, I guess not anymore. I won’t get to see her graduate. I won’t be able to walk her down the aisle at her wedding. I won’t get to bounce her children on my knee. Because of ducks. My future was taken and so was my daughter’s because of some ducks. That woman was standing on the left side of her car, so I couldn’t go to the left without hitting, and probably killing, her. It’s easy to forget me. You won’t see me at the trial. But, I once was like you. I had dreams and aspirations. I had hopes for my daughter. All gone. For ducks. My family has to carry on without us. The newspaper doesn’t run any stories about what they’re going through. The crazy thing is that I like ducks, too. I just wouldn’t do something so foolish because of them.”
That particular bike weighs about 850 pounds. There would be a lot of kinetic energy stored up in that scenario.
The lack of obvious damage to the crash bars and the tremendous front end damage tells me it was a head-on impact.
No mention of the rider not wearing helmets and the knowledge of Quebec’s helmet laws lead me to assume the riders were indeed wearing helmets.
From the article:
“National Post reported Czornobaj, who doesn’t have a criminal record, was willing to plead guilty as recently as April but refused to do jail time.”
Kill a biker, go to jail.
I’m thinking that photo is a point of rest for her vehicle post collision and not necessarily where she was stopped,
Reason: there’s no way she could have opened the driver’s side door when that close to the median barrier.
(If she slid over and went out the passenger door to shoo away the ducklings — then that door would have been opened into the number one lane and constitute a hazard).
BraveMan, I have very little knowledge of motorcycles so I’ll gladly defer to your assessment. What got my attention was the picture of the car, the damage extends the entire width of the rear end.
On closer examination, the point of impact appears to be almost centered, just to the right and below the license plate. That certainly conforms to the head-on hit you suggest.
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