Darryl Anderson was drunk behind the wheel of his Audi SUV, had his accelerator pressed to the floor and was barreling toward a car ahead of him when he snapped a photo of his speedometer. The picture showed a car in the foreground, a collision warning light on his dashboard and a speed of 141 mph (227 kph).
An instant later, he slammed into the car in the photo. The driver, Shalorna Warner, was not seriously injured but her 8-month-old son and her sister were killed instantly, authorities said. Evidence showed Anderson never braked.
Anderson, 38, was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years in prison for the May 31 crash in northern England that killed little Zackary Blades and Karlene Warner. Anderson pleaded guilty last week in Durham Crown Court to two counts of causing death by dangerous driving.
As a Canadian, I read 141 and thought, “141 km/h is pretty fast, but that’s not international news fast.” Then I saw it was mph!
Driving that fast on a closed course while sober with complete focus is dangerous. Yet this guy was drunk and texting on public roads.
“Sometimes mistakes happen," he said. "But I’m not a bad person.”
AFAIK, no mistakes happened, those were all choices. And by making those choices, yes, you are a bad person.
Bro killed two people, one of them a kid, and he’s actually saying “No one’s perfek 🤪!!!”
Sounds like 2 kids actually, but yeah
Her son and her sister.
Oh, I thought it meant the baby’s sister when I read it.
Dude didn’t even wait for the bodies to get cold before he absolved himself. What a gaping asshole
* checks *
~225km/h is pretty fucking fast. Damn.
This is a very bad person. Calling what he did a mistake shows a lack of emotional understanding that should in all honestly, get you put somewhere we never have to see them again.
I agree these where choices, and he should be held accountable for them. I disagree that they make him a bad person, because a person may not have the understanding of what those choices can result in. I agree that he is not a good person, but I agree because he is refusing to take responsibility for his choices.
Edit: And upon reading the remainder of the article, I agree he is not a good person, because he clearly did understand what those choices could result in. Shooting video while driving, let alone at those kind of speeds, and while drunk? I can’t think of any excuse or explanation that could mitigate that.
This is literally the afluenza teen defense that got Ethan Couch zero jail time for killing 4 people and seriously injuring 9 while drunk driving.
This guy is too poor to drive drunk and actually has to face consequences for his actions.
Fuckin Christ what the fuck
Not only did he just get probation but then he and his mom fled to Mexico and were later caught and they still didn’t get much of a punishment.
Genuinely sickening
And that’s not even all of it. That whole Wikipedia page is filled with crimes. Both his and his parents’. Insane
Anderson lied to police, saying a hitchhiker was driving at the time of the crash.
Prosecutor Emma Dowling said a roadside breath test showed Anderson was nearly three times over the limit driving after drinking. An empty vodka bottle was found in his car.
Witnesses later reported that he had been driving dangerously for 20 miles (32 kilometers) and his phone showed he had been sending text messages.
At a police station, he told officers he had driven into the back of a car.
“Sometimes mistakes happen," he said. "But I’m not a bad person.”
Sometimes mistakes happen!!!??? My dude, you murdered two people out of sheer recklessness and negligence and then lied about it. You don’t get to excuse your behaviour by saying “oh, I’m not a bad person…”
Take some fucking responsibility. Although, I guess if you were capable of taking responsibility for your actions you wouldn’t be on your phone while driving double the highway speed limit and drunk off your ass.
Reading this, he was probably still very drunk when he said it. Doesn’t make him any less of a POS.
Also, alcohol generally makes someone tell the truth, so I’m guessing his only remorse is I got caught.
Thats a myth about telling the truth. People change more and more the more they drink and the more often they drink. Its not a more honest version of them coming out, just a different one.
Not a bad way person? Holy crap at this list of ways he endangered people and recklessly murdered two. He deserves more than 17 years
PSA: your local fire precinct (in the USA, probably England too) can do a car seat installation and fit check for you. Strap your kids in, and strap them TIGHT. It can be very easy to install a seat improperly, I had mine checked when I was a new parent until I was confident I had it right.
Before anyone flames me for victim blaming I am 100% not blaming the mother. It is quite possible that at those speeds the child would have died regardless, and the driver deserves every day in jail that he spends.
I’m almost 100% certain that a 141MPH impact absolutely destroyed everything that the car seat was attached to. There was an accident posted on reddit a couple years ago (from either L.A. or Texas) where a guy was going something like 120MPH and hit stopped traffic on the highway. His vehicle completely sheared off the upper half of the car he hit first and then shot over several vehicles before hitting a building probably 30 yards off the side of the freeway. A car traveling that fast carries an insane amount of energy.
Energy goes up with the square of velocity. A car going 140 MPH has 4x the energy of a car going 70. Assuming a 3,000 lb car, there was about as much energy in the car as 1.4 lb (.64 kg) of TNT, but applied in a single direction, much more efficiently than an explosion would. Modern cars are impressively safe, but there probably wasn’t much left.
Edit: He was driving an SUV, ~5000 lb, so closer to 2.4 lb (1.1 kg) of TNT. It’s a miracle that anybody survived.
But take into account that the woman was also driving at certain speed when he hit her. If she was driving at 100MPH then his speed relative to her was just 41MPH
Why would we assume the victim was speeding too?
I think his math is bad because he just went with a cool round number.
But, more realistically, she was probably going somewhere between 55-70 mph (don’t know road or highway or whatever) and that’s still a difference of 70-90 miles an hour. So I’d say yeah, the seat check MIGHT prevent harm if you’re super duper lucky but I don’t think that baby’s walking away from that with anything less than life threatening injuries
babies can’t walk
Bruhhhh
please be patient with me i am autistic
miles is not a unit I am familiar with. I certainly wasn’t suggesting the woman was speeding or slowing down just that her speed (whatever it was) should be taken in consideration when estimating the severity of impact.
Of course this is all theoretical since we do know for a fact that two people were killed
Right, but they’re not particles travelling through a vacuum. Even a tiny contact at highway speeds is enough to send one or both cars rolling.
As a mother with a 8 month old she was likely sticking to 70 mph.
You should not strap them TIGHT, but you should make sure they’re not loose. Too tight is a thing and can result in additional pressure/exertion, which leads to bending of parts, fraying, and stripping of components, ultimately making things less safe. The key is to be just right.
Why can someone even drive a car that can go that fast on public streets? Countries should enforce speed limiters on vehicles brought into their country for roadway use. It may not prevent drunks from driving, but it could slow them down and prevent some deaths and injury. People don’t even need to be drunk for these speeds to be dangerous.
Because every time government tries to limit vehicles there is a very loud roar of whataboutism and mah freedom.
At a certain point we need to prioritize people’s safety over “vroom vroom”. 200+ km/h is nearly double highway speeds. Children dying from speeding crashes should be much more important than somebodys ego and desire to speed.
As a driving enthusiast even I agree with this.
However, people will just work around any limiters that get set like we already do.
Many cars and motorcycles already have speed limiters—often 130-150mph.
Big fines, impound, jail time for people caught bypassing their limiters.
As far as I know that’s already the case.
But nobody is going to know about it except you and (optionally) whoever you hired to do it if not yourself, so you’re only getting fined/arrested for it after you’re caught going 180mph.
yeah, be hard on crime! (sarcasm)
I’m just meming—i don’t have a solution. other than maybe if people like me had a good outlet to enjoy what we love.
The fastest speed limit I’ve seen is 65, so it is over double that
There’s one around the White Mountains in NH that I have driven on that was 75 mph, but that is the absolute fastest I have ever seen. The same highway (I think) stayed 75 mph through the Green Mountains in VT too. Both areas are rural without a ton of drivers outside of peak tourism season, and about a 0% chance of hitting a pedestrian.
Definitely a chance of hitting a moose and totally fucking up it’s legs, ending your own life in the process. Motherfuckers have been known to walk away from many car accidents without much more than a limp. They’re tall enough where they roll over most cars and even many pickup trucks when full grown.
EDIT: Nevermind. It was I-93, which has a speed of 70 mph in the section that I drove on and I couldn’t find a 70 mph speed limit sign on that highway in VT, because it ends quickly after entering VT. Couldn’t be bothered to find where the VT highway was though.
There are some 110 km/h hwys near me. The average speed seems to be 130 km/hr and cops don’t seem to mind until you go faster than that. 20 over seems “acceptable” near me, even in school zones marked 40 km/hr.
Lol could you convert those to freedom units? I’m too smoothbrained for this
20 km/h ≈ 20.000 yards per hour
40 km/h ≈ 40.000 yards per hour
110 km/h ≈ 110.000 yards per hour
130 km/h ≈ 130.000 yards per hour
Live up to your name!
A meter is a bit longer than a yard though. https://www.google.com/search?q=1+m+in+yards&oe=utf-8
Southern Utah has 80 MPH between Cedar City and Washington City (by St. George).
From this month it is already happening in Europe, with caveats.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/11/speed_limiters_arrive_for_all/
That’s not a limiter, just an alert that you’re going over the posted limit
I said, with caveats.
There are four options available to manufacturers according to the regulations. The first two, a cascaded acoustic or vibrating warning, don’t intervene, while the latter two, haptic feedback through the acceleration pedal and a speed limiter, will.
That implementation of a speed limiter is not a hard limit though.
Ok, as long as cops have the same limiters in their vehicles.
What’s the reasoning there?
So how would a cop catch up to someone who bypass their limiter? Or respond to hostage situation in a timely manner? Or get to another unit who needs assistance?
I think it would just be better to fire cops who abuse their power.
So how would a cop catch up to someone who bypass their limiter?
A lot of (sensible) municipalities have banned high-speed chases by police since they’re so insanely risky to bystanders. Nothing wrong with cops not being able to speed dangerously, even if it means perps sometime escape (to be caught later anyway since their identities are usually known).
So how would a cop catch up to someone who bypass their limiter?
They don’t, there’s no need. They get the person’s plate info and send the fine after the fact. They can also come impound the vehicle, as well. Dangerous chase: avoided.
Or respond to hostage situation in a timely manner?
They can have a special vehicle at the station that doesn’t have the limiter for extremely specific situations like that. Only specially trained officers can use it.
Or get to another unit who needs assistance?
Normal speeds. They shouldn’t be allowed to endanger people not even near an incident to get somewhere because another cop is “”“in danger”“”
I think it would just be better to fire cops who abuse their power.
I think it would just be better to not give cops the chance to abuse their power in the first place since that injures and kills people
Why?
How would these work exactly? Where I live max speed on freeways is 70mph and 25mph on residential streets. You can definitely still kill someone using a car limited to maximum legal speed.
He’s saying that if the car in the article was speed limited, it would’ve hit the back of that poor girl’s car and dented it, instead of ruining people’s entire lives
I don’t think you understood the point I made.
I did. I’m just saying speed limiters would reduce deaths overall, but of course you had to counteract with “but they won’t reduce deaths in this specific situation”
Lower speeds will lower impact forces, increase vehicle handling, and provide more reaction time for drivers.
You can certainly kill someone going the maximum legal speed in a place where the speed limit is much lower. But the likelihood of injury and death still does increase with the increase in speed. So if, say, 5% of accidents involving someone going 70 are fatal, but 10% if the person is going 90 (these are made-up numbers), then if cars are not even able to go above 70, you end up saving lives.
I doubt there’s significant difference.
One of those speed limits is designed for a location where cars are unlikely to hit a human directly. Another location can have a child randomly run into the street. 70 and 170 are both death sentences.
Speed limiters in cars that don’t dynamically adjust to actual speed limits are useless and only exist to check the boxes for idiot voters disconnected from reality.
While I agree that it would certainly be ideal if a speed limiter could account for the context that the car is in, you’ve missed a lot in drawing your conclusion that it would be useless without being able to do that.
Hitting a pedestrian is not the only type of accident. If you rear end a car going 25 mph at 70mph it is not a guaranteed death sentence for all. Especially if the driver brakes, which some do not, but some will. And this is ignoring cases where there isn’t a tremendous mismatch in speed. Like, even if it reduced residential deaths by 0% but it reduced overall deaths looking at all situations, it would be a net gain with literally nothing lost. We are looking at the aggregate here. So, it isn’t relevant if you think of one specific situation where you believe 70mph isn’t better than 90mph or whatever number.
Reaction time and braking distance are affected by speed. In some cases, the person going 70 might be able to slow down enough to have the collision be non-fatal. Reaction time goes down and braking distance goes up as speed increases. If a speed limiter gives just enough time to occasionally make an accident non-fatal, then in the aggregate you have fewer fatal accidents.
In fact, taking braking distance into account, I don’t think you can even say that over the millions of miles driven, that a speed maxed at 70mph isn’t going to, occasionally, lead to a situation in a residential area where someone was able to just get out of the way in time because the car covered 30% less distance between the time the pedestrian reacted and the time the car reached that spot (or an even larger difference if the driver noticed and braked at some point as well). But again, it doesn’t matter if it’s few to none in this specific scenario, because a speed limiter of 70 will certainly reduce fatalities overall.
I’m sorry but this isn’t “world news” to me. Random drunken tragedies are hardly something useful to keep me informed on what is happening in the world.
It can be useful for people to see how other countries handle crimes like this one.
I’m from the US and if this happened here depending on what state he was in would determine whether he got a slap on the wrist or jail time. Also if the judge was corrupt or a shitty person he’d get a slap on the wrist(see rapist Brock Turners case).
So it not completely useless. At least I don’t think so.
Lemmy is still so starved for content that stories get posted where they shouldn’t, and submissions are still dominated by a handful of accounts.
(you’re right)
Anglophones do be loving their cars but the real problem is cyclists riding on pavements. Have you got any idea how dangerous that is? Only the other day I took a picture of my pumpkin spiced latte and caused a multiple pedestrian pile up.
Had me in the first half, ngl.
Bad drivers need harsher punishments if you ask me.
deleted by creator
I get it, but also when I think about if that happened to my sister, let alone my child, no amount of time would be enough. 2 years for ripping two people out of your life feels like a pittance. How do you separate the emotion from the practicality?
deleted by creator
Not vengeance but justice. 2 years in prison then off you go is not justice. Now two years and 15 years paying support to the family you have wronged can be justice.
But just two years till you’re good is not how it’s supposed to work. There needs to be consequences otherwise there is no difference between somone going into rehab voluntarily for two years and somone killing two people and then being forced to go to rehab.
How do you know when a person is reformed versus playing the part to get out earlier? Is there a risk of the system being abused by those who commit a crime knowing that they can get out in a couple years’ time?
If you can’t even think of forgiving this hypothetical transgression you’ve come up with, how can you ever hope to have a positive influence on this world that might actually protect others from the kind of tragedy you’ve described?
I’m sorry but I’m not sure I see the connection here. How does forgiveness prevent such tragedies?
Imagine having your children killed - probably hard if you don’t have children and the reading your comment.
I anything ,the justice system should be more punishing for such cases. How can you even mention forgiveness for drunk driving,showing off,killing people and then asking for it with such a worryingly easiness?
Forgiveness for what,for being a blatant sociopath? Really? If I were that lady I would have preferred enjoying the rest of my life with my children as opposed to forgiving a murderer and knowing he might do it again,cause it’s easy to forgive and “Forgiveness is a powerful thing”. This is not a case for forgiveness,but harsher punishment.
Again: you’re asking for forgiveness for a drunk driving murderer of people and children.
deleted by creator
So, death sentence? Eye for an eye?
No,not death sentence,but i noticed people here are worryingly apologetic for murder. It is murder,not in the 1st degree off,but still murder.
25 years with no parole and that’s that. I’m sorry,I just can’t find excuses for drunk driving murders like some people do. It’s my belief system,not a standard.
deleted by creator
Some people are just that irresponsible. Also the human brain is notoriously bad at risk assessment, so some people truly don’t realize how likely they are to cause suffering and death when they do shit like this. Harsh punishments won’t change that because this guy probably didn’t think he was gonna accidentally murder 2 people that night
Yes.
deleted by creator
Which is why we don’t come up with our own punishments.
People shouldn’t be locked in cages just because of someone’s emotions.
I don’t know that emotion is so easily divorced from justice. How do you define what a just punishment is for a crime? Or does the magnitude of the crime not matter?
We learn over and over again from our various texts-of-wisdom, be it fables or scripture or novels or movies, that revenge is a primitive response to problems. It’s the moral of so many stories, right?
Yet we organize society to satisfy these immature desires. Punishment, for the most part, is neither deterrent nor corrective, and a paltry form of redress.
Do you want justice? Start with redress. You can’t fix the problem of a dead child but the victims need proper support, to alleviate all the other issues caused by the crime. In Canada the prison system is called “corrections” but it mostly fails at that… rehabilitation requires an evidence-based system to succeed, and ours is built on punishment, an emotional response.
If you want deterrence, well that requires eliminating poverty and supplying real education, backed by proactive and robust mental health services.
I define justice as the best possible outcome of a bad situation.
So the crime committed and the effect on the victims, if any, doesn’t affect the sentencing?
Uh, sure it does, in the sense that if someone is unable to be rehabilitated, they should be kept away from the public? Not sure what you’re asking except maybe “can I please just have a little revenge?”
There is no harsher punishment than this. It’s literally 1/4th of your life gone. Getting out of prison after this time and realizing what you lost and you got nothing - no friends, no family (probably), no relationships - must be soul crushing.
I’d rather die honestly.
This might qualify as murder in Germany, especially the “did not brake” part: It’s not necessary to have intent to kill someone, it is only necessary to willingly hazard the consequences. That’s how those street racers got convicted of murder.
OTOH that’s the kind of murder that gives you a life-long sentence where parole after just the minimum time (15 years) is definitely not just on the table but the norm.
“life-long” in Germany is 25 years, normally with the option for parole after 15. However there is “Sicherheitsverwahrung”, which doesn’t count as punishment but is instead justified with protecting the rest of the public from a certain person, and can be applied indefinitely.
The average imprisonment for life-long is 25 years. There’s no actual corresponding timed-sentence for lifelong as that is in fact technically lifelong, though with constitutional guarantee to have a chance at resocialisation. And § 66 StGB is most certainly not applicable to this kind of manslaughter. The dangerous part - recklessly driving a vehicle - can be mitigated by revoking and blocking the driving licence
Dangerous Offender status is what they call it in Canada. It’s reserved for the confirmed sociopaths.
Murder in germany requires intent and malice. Neither is given here.
Dolus eventualis aka Eventualvorsatz, which can indeed be summed up as “willingly hazarding the consequences”. AFAIU in English that’s not a type of intent but recklessness. It certainly is not intent to kill someone, just intent to not give a fuck whether someone dies, there’s a difference there.
Trying to sum up the stuff that distinguishes Totschlag from Mord with “malice” is also rather… vague. The key factor in this case (or at least the aspect that’s easiest to establish) is killing by using means that are a danger to public safety, to wit, a car going 226km/h. Certainly doesn’t fit the dictionary definition of “malice”.
Certainly doesn’t fit the dictionary definition of “malice”
That’s why it’s not murder in this case.
Murder would be if I kill you for your car, as an example. Or a child killing his parents for faster inheritance. In Germany, we’d call these “niederer Beweggrund”, so … “Greed-based motive”? Idk how to properly translate it.
In this case, its definitely no murder tho because neither of the three characteristics for murder are given.
Mörder ist, wer aus Mordlust, zur Befriedigung des Geschlechtstriebs, aus Habgier oder sonst aus niedrigen Beweggründen, heimtückisch oder grausam oder mit gemeingefährlichen Mitteln oder um eine andere Straftat zu ermöglichen oder zu verdecken, einen Menschen tötet.
“niederer Beweggrund” would be “base motive”, Habgier is greed. And they’re only one possible way to qualify murder. As I emphasised there, using means that are a danger to public safety is another.
17 years is harsh but fair. Anything beyond that is just punitive.
Americans are in a very weird bubble when it comes to punishment/correction compared to most of the developed world and they don’t seem to notice it.
Insane punishments, death penalty, imprisoning drug users, imprisoning sex workers, private prisons, normalized prison violence/sex violence. It’s bonkers.
Wouldn’t be a Lemmy post if it weren’t for someone shitting on America or Americans even when the story has nothing to do with America.
It was a response to a comment asking for harsher punishment. And that sort of comment tends to pop up in most discussions involving somewhat reasonable punishments being mentioned.
Punishments in the US tend to be excessive though and people in the US somehow normalized it.
As an American I completely agree. People lose sight of just how much time the amount of years actually can be, and just want to feel better about punishing bad people.
Most people who do something like this will live with the guilt for their entire lives. It will always come up in job interviews, it will hurt their social situations. Nightmares forever. But we just have to pile even more shit on so that the rest of us can ride the high horse.
And before anyone shows up, no, getting a longer or shorter prison sentence does nothing for the victim. They’re already in as bad of a spot as they could be.
Which has precisely zero to do with the submission.
deleted by creator
Ironic considering in the USA this person would likely have a much more linent sentence for this specific crime
17 years isn’t nearly long enough
Removed by mod
Especially SUVs. They’re death machines even at normal speeds.
You wanna go faster than the highway speed limit? Build high speed rail, much safer and a more controled environment.
There are places without speedlimits.
Fine, but this was in England, where there are speedlimits everywhere and there is an ocean channel between it and the closest place without speedlimits.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
140 is not very fast in some countries. In Germany, a farming vehicle will pass you at that speed.
200+ km/h is definitely in the “very fast” category for Autobahn speeds.
What kind of farming vehicle can even approach 140mph?
Cropduster planes
technically correct
Passing at 140km/h, or 227km/h?
deleted by creator
He killed two people. A 17-year sentence seems fair.
Double it. He’ll, triple it. He killed a child. Killing innocent people is always bad, but when those innocents are children, that’s a particularly atrocious. He at least plead guilty, though it looks like they had a dead to rights.
He probably also got a plea deal to not be charged for manslaughter. Or maybe he can only be charged for one or the other of manslaughter or reckless driving resulting in death in that jurisdiction I don’t know. If you could only be charged for one of the other the prosecutor certainly would have gone for the one with the harsher sentence, but if he’s showing remorse which seems highly likely then they might have at least trimmed it down to only 17 years.
Personally? I say lock him in a 3 meter steel cube for the rest of his life.
What good does that do for society?
Some people sadly don’t care about that and just want punishment because it makes them fell good.
It’s a completely different sentiment when a child dies, especially that the child who died in this case was an 8-month old who has not even started to enjoy what life has to offer. There’s a reason that even those incarcerated are not kind to child killers.
I’m not justifting the person’s rageful sentiment btw, I’m just explaining why some people feel this way.
Please let everyone who lost a person to this, spit in his face or punch it.
So he was playing like a game of chicken while driving? At that speed? 🤦
So sorry for the victims, that’s horrible
deleted by creator
I am baffled at how bloomy rind dick cheeses like this guy can find one night stands, girlfriends and spouses, while I have struggled for years to date.
Because if you drunkenly boast to airport staff that your wife left you whilst on vacation, and you’re driving 200 miles away to get another one, then you come across as one of those womanizing pieces of shit who somehow pulls when they don’t deserve to. Actually no, you’re worse than that, because your average douche wouldn’t drink drive at 141 mph whilst taking dashboard pics on his phone for clout.
Ask yourself, though, if the women who are attracted to this kind of behavior would make a suitable partner for you.
I’m guessing because you have standards and want to be with someone who actually cares about you and who you care about and who you share interests with beyond a cheap fuck.
Unfortunately, loneliness is a huge problem in our society and you are one of the many people who suffer from it, but this asshole is just as lonely. He’s just filling the loneliness gap with something he might as well pay for considering how much it really means to him in terms of being with another person.
What standards?
I’ve lowered mine substantially over the years and women still treat me like I’m scum of the earth, but will get with douchebags like this guy.
Look, ma, I’m on IV!
