Was this driver guilty of reckless driving?

I was given a ticket for reckless driving when I hydroplaned into another vehicle. I was going 20 miles under the speed limit. This may be me, but I don’t understand how someone can be cited for reckless driving when hydroplaning isn’t something you have control over.

Maybe this will help you to understand reckless driving. reckless driving is the willful and wanton act for the disregard of other peoples lives or property. according to the witnesses, this driver was speeding. the posted speed limit was 70 mph. in a driving rain at speeds above 30 mph is dangerous, especially if you hauling a trailer behind your vehicle. the disregard for other people safety was apparent, when the pallets hit other vehicles causing damage.

@ambos I agree. What happened to you wasn’t something you could control. It was an ACCIDENT. You shouldn’t have gotten a ticket at all, IMHO.

@john65pennington In your instance, if he was speeding, that’s a whole other issue. He needed a ticket for speeding AND wreckless driving. If nothing else, he should have been ticketed for being a knucklehead!

@john65pennington Speeding with a trailer in the rain is reckless driving, hydroplaning is something that can happen at a wide variety of speeds and can be completely unavoidable, much like black ice.

I always love in the winter when they say “watch out for black ice”. Because you can watch out for something you can’t see and slow down enough not to lose traction on a virtually frictionless (at least to a car tire) surface.

@john65pennington Yes, but can you issue a speeding ticket base on an eye witness? I thought that that was hearsay. How does the witness know how fast he was going? I’d say he deserved a ticket because he probably should have been using a truck to pull a load of pallets. But I don’t know what the law says about it. As I understand it, hydroplaning can only occur at speeds over thirty miles an hour. If you have to take five miles an hour off the posted speed limit for every adverse condition and the limit was 70, what would that be? -5 for the rain, -5 for the wet road, was it dark? – another 5. But is that a law your state enforces? I thought that reckless driving was anything above 20 MPH over the posted speed limit. See how little I know about it?

Fast driving during a down pour while hauling pallets behind a car on a highway certainly seems reckless. Depending on the weight of the pallets and their distribution, that alone could make it reckless.

I disagree with part of your assessment though. Hydroplaning isn’t reckless unless it is intentional or reasonably avoidable, in which case speed is only one of many factors involved. Nor are the pallets damaging other vehicles a clear sign of disregard for the safety of others unless they were not secured properly and the driver was aware of such.

Trillian, you are correct. reckless driving citations can also be issued for going over ten miles mph over the posted speed limit. this is rarely enforced in my state, but it is considered reckless driving, also. if you stop to think about it, “the willful and wanton disregard for safety of lives and property” is a broadbase law. i wrote a man a citation for reckless driving, simply because he and his wife were wearing seat belts and his two children in the back seat, were not belted. speed limit was 45 mph, lasar radar clocked at 75 mph. his children had no choice but to ride in the vehicle driven by their father, who was speeding and they were not belted. this, was the disregard for the safety of others….......his children. he was fined $1,2000.00 and court costs, plus two points on his drivers license.

Hauling pallets on a flatbed trailer in a driving rain is reckless driving at any speed….and stupid too.

“Driving too fast for conditions” is speeding regardless of posted limits.

If you’re hydroplaning in rainy weather, then you are driving too fast for conditions—and speeding. That’s no “accident”; that’s negligence, carelessness, ignorance—a lot of things that aren’t “accidents”.

Now, a case could be made for someone coming upon an unexpected film of oil or water on the road in dry weather and being unable to react. That might be an accident. But even then, if you’re driving too fast to react properly to even ‘unexpected’ obstacles in the roadway, then you’re speeding.

This reminds me of a pet peeve of mine: car and tire commercials that show the “responsiveness” of a car that can swerve at high speed to avoid obstacles in the road. Like that happens often. More often, the driver is just plain driving too fast.

Full disclosure: I typically drive 5 – 10 mph over posted speed limits, but I don’t hydroplane; I don’t skid around turns (much), even in snow, and I don’t hit other drivers or “things in the road”.

@CyanoticWasp I don’t think you understand hydroplaning. You can’t determine whether you are going fast enough to hydroplane, for the most part. You could drive five miles per hour and probably not hydroplane, but at twenty miles per hour you could certainly hydroplane. Is it not more reckless to go fifteen miles per hour on the interstate because it is raining and you might hit a puddle? Basically if you want to absolutely avoid hydroplaning, you’ll have to simply not drive in the rain.

@Snarp I understand hydroplaning pretty well, all right. And there’s no “probably” about driving 5 mph and not hydroplaning—you couldn’t possibly.

If you can hydroplane at 20 mph all I can suggest is that you stop trying to drive into the lake.

@CyanoticWasp So what’s the magic speed at which I will not hydroplane?

If he hydroplaned, he was going too fast for conditions. End of story. My drivers ed instructor taught us there ARE no ‘accidents’, especially if driving in poor conditions. If his load came loose, it wasn’t secured properly. If he lost control of his car because of water on the road, he wasn’t being careful enough, either through speed, or tire pressure or both.

@snarp- you were following too close and going too fast. Drive more carefully next time and if you can’t admit you were at fault, I hope you don’t drive around me.

@cazzie Your drivers ed teacher fed you a nice meaningless platitude to try to get you to drive safely. He or she was also wrong. There are accidents, you can’t control everything, and there’s no such thing as driving in such a way as to guarantee you will not be in an accident. Sure there’s such a thing as obviously driving unsafely based on conditions, but the only way to be absolutely sure of avoiding a car accident is to leave your car in the garage.

@Snarp that’s an impossible question to answer, because it depends on so many things:
– the depth of water on the roadway
– the roadway surface and geometry
– the geometry, condition and inflation of your own tires
– the weight of the vehicle (although that’s secondary to all of the above)

@Snarp… this is why I hate driving in the States. and I DO leave my car in the garage, more often than not.

@CyanoticWasp Then do you imagine that a driver in the rain can predict what the depth of water on the roadway will be, understand the exact road surface and geometry and how it will change in the next mile and use those predictions to determine the appropriate speed at any given moment? Say for example I’m driving an empty pickup truck on the highway and it’s raining fairly heavily. I move into the right lane and slow down to about 45 miles per hour. I round a curve and there’s a puddle in the road ahead of me of unknown depth. Am I driving too fast for conditions? What will happen when my rear wheels, the drive wheels, over which there if very little weight, hit that puddle? Should I be going slower?

You argue that hydroplaning is necessarily a case of driving too fast, is preventable, and is the driver’s fault. I say hydroplaning is unpredictable, you can reduce your risk, but it may not be your fault.

@Snarp read what I wrote on that very topic earlier. If you drive around a “blind” curve at 45 mph and can’t properly react (to stop, safely go around, or simply slow down) to anything that might be in the road, then yes, “you’re driving too fast”. If you do that in the rain or snow, at night, in farm country at a time when cows are crossing roads… so much more so.

Incidentally, it’s your front wheels that will cause the hydroplane, more often than not. If you rear wheels don’t have traction, then you’ll lose locomotive ability, but when your front wheels plane, then you have no control over direction.

Back to your example… if you’re driving on a road that you don’t know, and therefore don’t know that it can puddle on a high-speed road, then you’re driving too fast for your knowledge of that road. I would imagine that if the water isn’t actually standing water an inch deep or more (pretty rare on American high speed roads), then you’ll probably be okay at 45 mph… but that might be pushing it.

I’m not saying that I’m perfect. I did hydroplane and roll a Ford Explorer about 15 years ago on an Interstate when I crested a short rise and hit a headwind that lightened the front end… and I hit shallow standing water. But I didn’t try to blame it on the vehicle, the weather or the road; it was my own fault. It almost always is.

@CyanoticWasp You make an awful lot of assumptions about what a driver can reasonably expect or predict. If you’re assumptions are reasonable, then anyone driving the speed limit on the interstate is guilty of reckless driving, or driving the speed limit anywhere that they don’t know the roads like the back of their hands at the very least. Is the speed limit not a reasonable indicator of what road conditions one can expect, or should everyone drive some arbitrary amount below the speed limit because when driving on roads they don’t know?

@CyanoticWasp Man, how do I get into these things with you. This isn’t even politics. I think we must share an excess of certainty about our own viewpoints.

Not guilty.

You cant fault the driver for an act of god.

Correct me if I’m wrong, @john65pennington but isn’t the minimum speed on the interstate 45 mph? How could he legally drive 30, regardless of rain? Or for that matter, drive 30 MPH safely on the Interstate, considering limited visibility of the other drivers trying to maintain the speed limit?

As far as I can see, that guy was guilty of not strapping down his load properly. Call that what you will, but I can’t call “reckless driving” on account of his tire landing in a puddle.

The minimum speed and maximum speeds are posted for optimum driving conditions. When there’s pouring rain… all bets are off.

@cazzie Tell that to the cop that wants to write tickets to people driving under the minimum posted limit, it’s going to be the same guy who writes a guy a ticket for obstructing traffic when his tire falls into an open manhole cover that some jackass road and bridge employee didn’t mark.

@Snarp there is something in what you say about a commonality of bad driving habits. I can’t really argue with that. As I admitted, I’m sometimes guilty, too. I’m certainly not perfect.

I was taught—correctly, I think—that if you rear-end anyone for any reason that it’s your fault as the driver in the rear. If the guy driving in front of me slams on his brakes and I run into him, that’s my fault, even if he has no brake lights, and even if he stops for no reason. (I realize that this is a tactic of insurance fraudsters, to “swoop and squat”, because that takes advantage of our generally poor habits in this regard.) If I hit a vehicle, stone, log, hole in the road—whatever—because I was driving too fast to be able to see it and react to it in time to control my vehicle and avoid it, then that’s my fault.

I do agree that Americans “typically” drive in congested packs on interstates where we routinely go too fast to be able to react properly in time when emergencies develop. If the bridge is out and we all end up going over the edge because no one sees it in time, then it’s our fault. Fifty-car pileups in the fog generally have at least half the drivers involved at fault, and sometimes more.

However, in normal driving on a relatively clear road, you should be able to see far enough ahead to know what you will be encountering and to plan and react accordingly. If you’re driving at night, in the rain or fog, and if you don’t know whether or not there may be water on the roadway, then it is up to you to manage your speed accordingly. There are no excuses. If you can’t see in time or stop in time, then it is your fault as the operator.

Interstate highways are designed so that grades and curves provide good lines of sight for the intended speeds in good weather and normal lighting (including nighttime driving with headlights). You don’t “suddenly round a corner” and find standing water on an interstate, as a rule. But if you do find standing water, then it’s your responsibility as the vehicle operator to be able to react in time and do the right thing.

@Seek_Kolinahr there’s no accounting for asshole traffic cops, but the poster of this question doesn’t seem to be one of them. The guy was reckless.. he didn’t have his kids buckled in in the back! He got off lightly in my view. Did that happen to you? The tire and the manhole thing? I certainly would have taken that one to court.

If it’s raining hard and traffic has to slow down, they can’t ticket drivers for slowing down under 45mph… that’s stupid, but I guess highway patrol guys get their bad rep for a reason.

@john65pennington I think you were too harsh. I don’t think, the accident, as you described it meets the standard of reckless driving. The guy should have been cited for faulty equipment, maybe overloading the trailer, or something like that. I am surprised, because you usually sound pretty reasonable.

@Ron_C He didn’t have his kids buckled in the back!? How is this NOT disregard for people’s safety?

@cazzie you know, the kids from my generation spent their lives riding in the front seat of cars with sharp knobs and metal dashboards. Sometimes riding on our father’s or grandfather’s lap steering the car. We rode in the back of pickup trucks, we rode bikes without helmets.

Maybe it is time to let evolution do its work. Too many coddled children are reaching adulthood and breeding other neurotic, asthmatic delicate children. These kids are growing up fat and weak and can’t pass the army physical. They are part of the decline of America and will end up whining us into extinction.

@Ron_C That’s not evolution. Evolution takes many, many generations. These “neurotic, asthmatic delicate children” who are “fat and weak” are the products of your generations reproduction. Whatever genes your generation has passed on got this far, the few changes in safety standards recently have done nothing to alter the gene pool. Furthermore, there is no gene that makes it possible for a child to survive a car accident when not in a safety seat, or makes the skull hard enough that a bicycle accident won’t cause brain damage. There’s no relationship between the safety precautions you mention and any genetic fitness of the current generation.

The reason kids are fat and weak is that they don’t get enough exercise and eat unhealthy foods. All the safety rules or lack thereof has nothing to do with that, and its not heritable, it’s present in an individual, but not passed on.

What is causing increased asthma is probably mostly poor air quality, but also increased time spent indoors in poor indoor air quality.

Attempting to blame seat belts and bike helmets for any flaws you see in modern children is absurd. It’s also a piss poor excuse for not taking basic safety precautions. If your child dies in a car accident because you couldn’t be bothered to make sure they wore a damn seat belt then that is your fault and you should be prosecuted for negligent manslaughter at the very least.

@Snarp sometimes we think alike. GA.

@Snarp I am not saying that this situation has an immediate effect on the gene pool, I am saying that protecting the stupid children of stupid parents ultimately increases the change of propagating stupidity. If you don’t believe this is true, you need to go to some of the tea party rallies.

I also notice that the percentage of children born to ignorant rather than educated people is increasing. My thesis is that the human race, at least in the U.S., is breeding towards intellectual extinction. Loosing a few of the really stupid along the way reduces the degradation of the species.

@Ron_C That all assumes that there is a heritable type of intelligence that is the main determinant in who is using seat belts or otherwise failing to take adequate precautions. Ignorance has little to do with heritable intelligence, and while it is likely passed from generation to generation, it is not passed on in the genes.

Frankly though, the education level and apparent intelligence of people in Western nations would appear to have been increasing up until at least the sixties, attempting to make some kind of guess about where we are headed genetically based on the apparent intelligence of a single, or even two generations of humans is sheer folly. (It’s also interesting that your example of increasing stupidity is the Tea Parties, which are mostly made up of people born before all these safety concerns that you claim are driving us toward stupidity.)

Attempts to predict what we can or should do or not do in terms of furthering the genetic advance of the human species have always been, and likely will always be failures, not to mention terribly unethical. The intelligence required to develop a computer program, a nuclear weapon, or the next revolution in energy technology has little relationship with the intelligence required to survive a dangerous childhood or prevent a dangerous childhood, and certainly nothing to do with the intelligence required to reproduce effectively in an agrarian society. Yet many people seem to think that Chinese people are naturally smarter than white people, and there’s no doubt that China is contributing a huge number of engineers and scientists. Yet only a few generations ago most Chinese people lived in rural settings. What has enabled them to produce so many scientists is simply having a lot of people and educating them well. Genetically speaking, the best we can hope to do is to encourage genetic diversity, not reduce the gene pool.

Are we off topic now, or what?

@Ron_C so… You don’t think driving has gotten more crowded on the roads? or faster with more perhaps unsafe, heavier cars? And I think it’s sick that you don’t believe those kids have the right to be saved from their parent’s ignorance.

How DARE you judge to death anyone because you deem them ignorant.

How long did you live in Whales, UK, anyway? hahahaha pot calling kettle there, mate.

@snarp This question reminded me a of a short story that I read long ago. It was set in the relatively near future where the average I.Q. was greatly reduced. Universities had PHD programs in fly fishing (for example) and cars were engineered to make a lot of noise, difficult to handle and give the impression of great speed even though their average speed was somewhere around 40 MPH. The world was actually run by people that sot refuge in the Arctic regions. They were the remaining people with high intelligence. The rest of the world was made up of people whose intelligence was bread out of them because of government programs that had the effect of encouraging the semi intelligent to breed and the intelligent to limit their progeny.

Besides trying to keep civilization in the world, the people in the Arctic were very angry with the past generations that caused the problem. That story left an impression that has lasted all these years and prompted my answer. Look at the urban culture. Teens emulate street people in their dress and language. Kids have children and are not even sure of the father’s name. Safety procedures are in place for the most ridiculous thing like warnings that irons are hot. Can you seriously believe that we are breeding for the best and the brightest?

@cazzie I’m not sure why your are questioning me about the U.K. although I do have scares and a limp from a serious accident that I had in Whales. I never criticized U.K, citizens but you have to wonder about their progress when you see the hooligans at the football matches.

@Ron_C I’m asking you about it because your profile mentioned you lived in a place called Whales, and you’re advocating that people who are ‘stupid’ should just be left to die in accidents. I don’t think you’re in any place to judge others intelligence. You know a book that says… ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged’?

As for ‘breeding for the best and the brightest’? I guess moving up here to the Arctic… I’ve beat the rush. sheesh. (shaking my head)

@cazzie thanks for pointing that out. I usually use a spell checker on my comments and that on slipped right by. It is now fixed.

I might point intelligence doesn’t mean you never make mistakes but does affect how you deal with them. By the way, the same book that says “judge not” also says to “kill all the people in the promised land and take it as your own (or words to that effect).

The people in the story sought refuge in the arctic, they didn’t move there for the fun of it.

We have already experienced 8 years of leadership by a C minus student. Imagine if all of our institutions and businesses were run by them.

Texas is in the process of re-writing history and dumbing down school books, SAT scores are dropping automatically dropping standards for entry into college. The trends are there and the only way to combat it is either a breeding program for intelligence or by letting attrition take care of stupid people.

@Ron_C I don’t think there’s much to add to the arguments I’ve already made. We don’t and can’t know what we are breeding for, the puzzle of human evolution is still largely a mystery, even as we begin to understand certain pieces of the genetic code, we still don’t know how it all fits together to make a human. Beyond that, we don’t even really know what intelligence is or how to test for it. There is some serious question as to whether anyone is really born significantly smarter than anyone else, barring serious developmental issues.

And fiction is fiction.

@Ron_C Don’t confuse your ‘civilization’ for the rest of the world. India breeds more GIFTED students than there are STUDENTS in the USA. Perhaps you should get a head start and begin learning Hindi. lol.

@Snarp and @cazzie the point is that evolution has no goals or direction, it is just a matter of the gene exists long enough to replicate becomes successful. Through most of our history we were not intelligent enough to be aware that we could actually direct evolution. It would be a shame if we actually bred that awareness back out of the species.

@Ron_C…. so we should take conscious steps to ensure only the ‘superior’ elements of the species breed? Like cattle? Like the Nazis were trying to do? (btw….. I have a story about that ‘breeding program’ that has touched my Norwegian family in a real way….) So, this kind of talk makes me sick.

@Ron_C We still can’t direct evolution. There are too many unpredictable factors. We can’t even identify “smart” well enough to justify trying to breed for it, let alone identify a gene for smart. What we are aware of now that we weren’t in the past is that we can’t direct evolution. We used to think that breeding people was as easy to direct as breeding dogs. What we now know is that it’s a lot harder to breed for human intelligence (pretty much impossible) than it is to breed for trainable dogs. We also now know that there are pretty bad unintended consequences even for breeding dogs, which is why we see so many purebred dogs with health problems. Meanwhile we can find mutts without any of those problems that are just as smart and trainable. In other words, we can’t really do better than letting evolution take it’s course.

@Snarp @cazzie I’m not advocating a breeding program, I was just point out that the most educated, most intelligent, and most competent of us don;t breed in near the profusion at the most violent and irresponsible of us. I am not just talking about Americans, I am talking world wide. In fact, statistically, if you want to control population growth, educate people. Surveys have consistently shown that the higher education level, the fewer the children. Also, the more likely that the children are born to married couple.

@Ron_C…Oh… so now you’re not saying… ‘let them die’... but ‘educate them’.... THAT I will always agree with. The more educated they get, though, the less likely they are to believe in dogma and religion, so there are always more obstacles in the way than just saying it to make it so. Get the zealots and power hungry out of the way, give the kids an education and help the world. amen.