AAA Guy: Don’t Bother Drivers With What, or Whom, They Run Over

Kaitlyn Charity. Photo via The Lamron

In what seems like a potential victory for common sense, state lawmakers are considering a bill that would require New York motorists to stop and see what they hit after they collide with something.

According to The Journal News, the bill, sponsored by Rep. Dale Volker (R-Depew), was spurred by the 2007 death of Kaitlyn Charity, a 20-year-old college student who was killed as she walked along a highway in the upstate town of Groveland. Charity was hit by a trucker and two other drivers, none of whom stopped.

Though it’s hard to believe it isn’t already illegal to blithely carry on driving after striking an unknown object, AAA New York rep John Corlett says that prohibiting drivers from doing so is not only unnecessary, but dangerous.

“If drivers start stopping every time they think they hit something and
pull off to the side of the road, it would cause more accidents,” he
said.

As Streetsbloggers have pointed out, this makes little sense in more ways than one — especially considering that Corlett reportedly believes “most drivers are responsible enough” to stop after a collision. So which is it, responsible or dangerous? Also, Volker’s bill is not limited to highways.

To get a sense of the cruelly absurd repercussions of current law, the truck driver who hit Charity was eventually convicted of perjury for changing his story about the crash, but faced no charges for leaving the scene because — since he didn’t stop — he didn’t know he had struck a human being.