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    • OT AND DISTURBING

    Filed at 7:30 am under by dcobranchi

    Delaware has a new law in which causing a death in a traffic accident can result in a midemeanor charge which carries a potential jail term of 2 1/2 years.

    In the newly announced case, the fatal collision occurred about 4:30 p.m. just south of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal at the corner of Del. 896 and Bethel Church Road.

    Cecil was driving south on the highway in a Ford S350 pick-up truck pulling a horse trailer, when he hit the driver’s side of a Ford Tempo that Soriano was driving east on Bethel Church Road, Aviola said.

    Soriano went into cardiac arrest as he was being airlifted by Delaware State Police helicopter to Christiana Hospital near Stanton, where he was pronounced dead, New Castle County paramedics spokeswoman Kelli Starr-Leach said at the time. Cecil was not injured.

    So, a fender-bender can result in serious jail time? Something doesn’t seem quite right here.

    2 comments »

    2 Responses to “OT AND DISTURBING”


    Comment by
    Traci
    February 14th, 2004
    at 8:12 pm

    Daryl,
    As a driver in DE, I share some concerns about this law as well. I also know two people who while driving in their late teens had accidents w/ serious consquences.. One hit a patch of ice & paralized his best friend & one made a careless driving error due to lack of experience & killed her best friend.
    She misjudged the distance when the passing stripes ended on a short straight piece of curvey road & hit a car coming the other way. She had started to pass on legal markings & then instead of pulling back in behind the car she was trying to pass when the lines changed to no passing she panicked & hurried ahead because the passing lines ran out. She mistakeningly thought that once you committed to pass you needed to finish.

    I know that for those people living w/ the knowledge that they were at the wheel and hurt or killed people that they loved is totally tramatic… To this day they can’t forgive themselves & ask if only…I had done ????

    In cases like that I don’t know what having the drivers serve jail time would accomplish? They serve jail every day in their heads.
    Physically locking them up w/ thieves, cold blooded murderers, child molestors, & drug pushers..(people that had knowingly set out to do the evil in their hearts) seems like a gross misjustice to me.
    I’m afraid though knowing what I do about DE legislature & their steadfast refusal to undo stupid bills that have passed into Law. This one is most likely here to stay.

    I truly feel for the families that have lost their loved ones by traffic accidents but jail time for people who weren’t drunk or knowingly reckless at the time won’t make things better.

    Comment by
    Laura
    February 15th, 2004
    at 9:02 pm

    I’m horrified at the thought of my daughter making a driving error due to inexperience, and killing someone. She’d never get over it. She’s had her permit since July, and drives to school every day with me in the passenger seat. Her driving is pretty good now, but it will be a long, long time before I’m comfortable with letting her drive alone, especially in this city. It was very different in the small town where I grew up.