Trucker in Deadly Colorado Crash Convicted

You're entitled to how you feel. I respectfully disagree. Going forward, I wouldn't mind seeing rookie drivers getting better training in various situations. I know majority of a driver's experience is gained going solo, but it don't hurt to have some introduction to certain scenarios. I think also putting relatively inexperienced drivers in a trainer's position can be devastating too, and in my opinion somewhat contributes to certain issues in the industry today.

 

Change the situation a little bit. If he was drunk and "didn't mean to kill them people" does your opinion change? He killed 4 people and injured a pile more, he's admitted to closing his eyes and steering back out into the traffic. He supposedly reported brake issue and kept driving like normal without getting them fixed. There's enough evidence of intent I'd say he's guilty of pre meditated murder, he's getting off easy with life.

 

All of the training in the world will not fix stupid people. Anybody should be able to see the gravel ramp as a better place to park your runaway truck than in Denver traffic. Stark stupidity is the cause here. The company and DMV may share some of the blame, throw them behind bars too.

 

Everything he said wasn't premeditated. That's not what that means. He closed his eyes out of panic. Where I agree with you, is that he shouldn't have driven faulty equipment, if there is truth to that. I'm not so sure I buy the defense of bad breaks. That's where I think the punishment comes in. I don't think he set out to kill those folks like they're on a hit list or something. That's why I don't think he should get 110 years. Now a drunk driver to me is something different. A drunk is too impaired to do anything. Sometimes they zone out, fall asleep, whatever. I won't necessarily say they set out to kill anybody purposely on that either, but I'm going to be a lot less sympathetic for a drunk driver. I ain't got an issue with people who get drunk, as I do with decent regularity, lol, but I'm chilling somewhere, and not in the public. I think drinking and driving is more of a bunch of collective decisions. One makes the decision to drink heavy, and one makes the decision to drive. So I can more understand the anger there. I suppose you can make the same argument for this driver going down this mountain. He fouled up from jump. He didn't take it slow and he should have got his brakes fixed. Like I said, if the driver is going to jail, then his company should take some of the punishment too for putting him in that position. It's a position he shouldn't have been in the first place.

 

What's the difference? A drunk driver chooses to drive drunk, this guy decided to drive a truck with brakes he allegedly knew were trash, decisions have consequences and I gaurantee if it were me on trial there'd be no national petition to have my sentence reduced.
What's west of Denver? How did he get to the top of that hill? How many hills did he apparently safely get down the rest of the trip previous to this accident? I don't think he should even get the benefit of the doubt of being ignorant.
He was stupid and went too fast and smoked his brakes. Maybe his Elog said "you can just barely make it to the bottom before you need a nap," where's the petition to ban HOS?
The company has likely broken a half a dozen federal laws, no way they didn't know this guy is English illiterate, go after them for the laws they broke. Somebody at the DMV signed off on this guy who did not meet qualifications getting a CDL, let's throw some neat charges like conspiracy at them too. But none of those people decided to drive back into stopped traffic at speed, that is 110% on this guys head.

 

Well you feel how you feel

 

How I feel has nothing to do with it. Hell with how many signatures there are that think this is excessive I say put him in another truck back at the top of the hill, let him try again since apparently life is a video game to people. Apparently killing people because you're stupid is ok in today's world.

 

Well......again you feel how you feel about it.

 

As a side note, apparently he was offered a deal with a 15 year sentence, out in 8 or 10, and he turned it down because he thought he should only be given a traffic ticket. So I'd say the problem is that he had a crappy education on personal responsibility in communist Cuba.

 

Where did you get that info?