If you'd like to be mad at a jury or prosecutor, try this one.

NY Daily News said:

A Georgia judge spared a grieving mom from prison, sentencing her instead to 12 months probation for jaywalking during a hit-and-run that killed her 4-year-old son.

Raquel Nelson, 30, also received 40 hours of community service in Cobb County Superior Court on Tuesday

The judge also gave her the chance to request a new trial.

Her attorney, David Savoy, said Nelson wanted a new trial to clear her name, but was considering accepting the sentence, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Nelson was facing up to three years in prison for illegally trying to cross a four-lane road in Marietta, Ga., with her three children on April 10, 2010, moments before a van plowed into the family.

Nelson's toddler son, A.J., was killed, and Nelson and one of her daughters were injured.

The driver, Jerry L. Guy, pleaded guilty to hit-and-run and served six months in prison.

He was released in October and serving five years probation.

Before the accident, Guy had been jailed nine times before, including a two-year stint in the late 90s for two other hit-and-run convictions.

He admitting to drinking and taken pain pills before the April 2010 incident, authorities said.

In an interview before the sentencing, Nelson said she accepted the fact that the ex-con didn't mean to kill her son, but she felt the prospect of jail time was salt in the wound.

"Even though he has had a history of it, nobody gets up that day and says, 'I'm going to kill a 4-year-old,'" Nelson said on NBC's "Today" show on Monday.

"However, to come after me so much harder than they did him is a slap in the face," she said.

Beverly Ward, A.J.'s preschool teacher who attended the sentencing, said probation was too harsh.

"She already has to relive it everyday. Her debt is paid," Ward told the Journal-Constitution.

"Every time she talks to her other children about A.J., or when she calls to check on his teachers, her debt is paid."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/07/26/2011-07-26_jaywalking_mom_raquel_nelson_spared_prison_for_hitandrun_that_killed_son_gets_pr.html

Looking at a pic from another site there is no safe place to cross the street from the bus stop to her home, and apparently there was another women charged with involuntary manslaughter when she and her kid were hit by a car at the same intersection and she was talked into pleading guilty by her lawyer.

Looking at a pic from another site there is no safe place to cross the street from the bus stop to her home

She should sue the bus driver. He should know better than to let people off where it's clearly unsafe.

In this day and age, she should sue the city for not providing an overhead covered crosswalk.

Bad situation all the way around.

She should walk to the nearest crosswalk. We can't expect the city to provide an overhead crosswalk every 100'. I was taught to cross at a safe area, she knew better.
Now, the driver, who has been involved in AT LEAST 2 other HIT AND RUN offenses should never be able to get behind the wheel of a car, ever. Plus, serve some time in prison. Real time.

Definitely a bad situation. About overhead covered crosswalks: Hwy 277 on the edge of Columbia is a divided 4 lane. There's apartment complexes on both sides and the residents used to run across 277 all the time, I nearly hit someone at 10:00 one night. Lots of people complained about the problem so the city put up a covered crosswalk and fenced botjh sides. The residents STILL climb the fence and run across the highway rather than walk the ~1/4 mile to the crosswalk.

They should sue the Today show for something too.

This is one of those things that's wrong on so many levels.

I would like to see a bigger picture... I am wondering if there isn't a crosswalk just out of view?

I do agree that the driver should have gotten more jail time than that.. especially as a serial hit and runner. but the mother deserved what she got too. She broke both the law of the land and the law of common sense when she marched her family across a busy 4 land highway.

Ignorance knows no innocence

IMO the driver should have gotten a much longer sentence. Regarding the crosswalks, I see two T intersections in the pic and only one has a crosswalk marked. Additionally neither one has a crosswalk to cross the main road. So I would say the city is somewhat responsible.

We have a stretch of road here that had a similar problem. Retail on both sides with apartments behind them on both sides. Were averaging one pedestrian fatality every two months. So the city marked crosswalks at all 5 intersections in the one mile stretch of road. They also put "Push to Walk" buttons with signs in two languages on each traffic light at each intersection.

That cut the fatality rate in half but still an unacceptable rate. So now we have our own mile long "border fence".

http://greenbuildingchronicle.com/2011/07/25/how-not-build-bus-stop-video-of-cct-stop-where-aj-nelson-died/

Here's a video of the scene. The nearest crosswalk is 1/3 mile away. Noone is doing that kind of walking in the evening with three kids when they are dropped off across the street from their building. I had a better pic from Google earth but can't get the link to post.

I would have thought the city could have painted a crosswalk leading from a busy bus stop to a large apartment complex but have met with my share of company lawyers I know they can't do it now because they would be admiting some fault. As always a poster will have to suffice, although we usually add a photo of a reenactment to show the seriousness of the situation.(I wish I were kidding)

I'm still curious ho the lady got the vehicular homcide charge and the driver did not. I'm sure there are a number of negligance/endangerment charges she could face but how do you get a vehicular charge without the vehicle?

mad_machine wrote: I would like to see a bigger picture... I am wondering if there isn't a crosswalk just out of view?

I checked on Bing Maps, and either way she would have had to walk about three tenths of a mile down and three tenths of a mile back to get across the street from the bus stop.

Edit: here's the link. You may have to click on bird's eye view when it opens up to get the whole picture. http://www.bing.com/maps/#Y3A9cG5qajd4N3ltMnY5Jmx2bD0xOSZzdHk9YiZydHA9cG9zLjMzLjkwOTAwMV8tODQuNTU5Nzc3X19fX2VffnBvcy4zMy45MDU4NTMwMDAwMDAwMV8tODQuNTYzMjYyX25lYXIlMjBBdXN0ZWxsJTIwUmQlMjBTVyUyQyUyME1hcmlldHRhJTJDJTIwR0ElMjAzMDAwOF9fX2VfJm1vZGU9RCZydG9wPTB+MH4wfg==

Actually, for once... I agree with a judge on a light sentence. I am going to go out on a limb and say if nothing else happened to her besides losing her son - she won't do that again. Now the 9 time DI/hit and run driver? Him I'd lock away. He will absolutely do it again.

stuart in mn wrote: I checked on Bing Maps, and either way she would have had to walk about three tenths of a mile down and three tenths of a mile back to get across the street from the bus stop.

Not sure how they do things there.. but the bus here will stop ANYWHERE on it's route.. even if people are standing half a block apart... it will stop at both places.

The lady COULD have walked the 3/10th down the crosswalk and gotten on the bus there.. and done the same getting off. A little walking is good exercise.. and in this case would have been a serious life saver

mad_machine wrote: The lady COULD have walked the 3/10th down the crosswalk and gotten on the bus there.. and done the same getting off. A little walking is good exercise.. and in this case would have been a serious life saver

A mom with 3 kids who lives in a housing complex and owns no car is gonna walk 3/10 of a mile if she doesn't have to??

You don't know very many moms, do you?

That's a heartbreak.

The city does bear some blame. They placed the bus stop in that location because THEY KNEW there would be foot traffic to the housing complex. Failure to also put in a crosswalk was negligence.

She needs a better lawyer.

Don't forget it's six tenths of a mile total walking distance down to the corner and back, versus a couple hundred feet going straight across the street.

The cynic in me says the city charged her so she could not sue as it happened in the context of a crime. IE jaywalking.

SVreX wrote:

mad_machine wrote: The lady COULD have walked the 3/10th down the crosswalk and gotten on the bus there.. and done the same getting off. A little walking is good exercise.. and in this case would have been a serious life saver

A mom with 3 kids who lives in a housing complex and owns no car is gonna walk 3/10 of a mile if she doesn't have to?? You don't know very many moms, do you?

The few I do are health nuts....

mad_machine wrote:

SVreX wrote:

mad_machine wrote: The lady COULD have walked the 3/10th down the crosswalk and gotten on the bus there.. and done the same getting off. A little walking is good exercise.. and in this case would have been a serious life saver

A mom with 3 kids who lives in a housing complex and owns no car is gonna walk 3/10 of a mile if she doesn't have to?? You don't know very many moms, do you?

The few I do are health nuts....

They don't count. They are NOT normal...

...Heck, they don't even eat bacon!

How the driver isn't locked away for good is beyond insane.

z31maniac wrote: How the driver isn't locked away for good is beyond insane.

I do agree with you.. how many does he have to kill?

i've got 2 kids... at the end of a long day the LAST thing i'm going to do is walk more than 1/2 mile with them when my destination is a quick dash across the street... a tired 3 or 4 year old is not exactly the most fun thing in the world to deal with... and getting them to walk a 1/2 mile at the end of the day isn't exactly the easiest thing to do...

then again I expect both pedestrians and drivers to be complete idiots...

I wonder how many times she's made that dash without issue though.

I think we can all agree that the lady made a HUGE mistake (She coulda pulled the stop cord at the crosswalk before the stop) but she's paying for that mistake. As a father who lost a son (not due to my negligence, someone else's) I can tell you it will be years before she doesn't think of him every time she goes to sleep, wakes up and a dozen times in between every day. I know the grief, but can't imagine if it was my lazyness (sorry, truth hurts and sucks sometimes) that let to it.
BUT, the driver??? How is he not locked up? Think about it. What kind of a waste of humanity and just plain flesh is he? If I were driving and something totally beyond my control happened and I seriously hurt someone it could haunt me for a long time. Now, make that a death and it's worse. Make that a death or serious injury that I WAS responsible for and I can't imagine.....yet he does it again.....

Honestly Doc.. if I screwed up and killed somebody with a car.. it would be a long time (if ever ) before I could get back behind the wheel

Using a crosswalk would have been the proper solution, but I doubt that it would have been safer. Most crosswalks are located at four-way intersections, which involve two axes of distracted drivers instead of only one, which was experienced in this situation.

What is the real issue? I would argue that the problem is much more complex than the story suggests. Over the last century, urban planning in the United States has emphasized the automobile so much that using any other form of transportation is simply dangerous or ridiculously inconvenient.

As far as pulling the lever before the stop, in our town the bus only stops at designated bus stops. Otherwise the bus would have to stop every twenty feet to let someone on or off.

mad_machine wrote: Not sure how they do things there.. but the bus here will stop ANYWHERE on it's route.. even if people are standing half a block apart... it will stop at both places.

In the video it shows that the bus stopped at a designated city bus stop. The buses by you really have time to stop everywhere someone asks? We do it after 10pm and even then it's usually a pain.

MitchellC wrote: Using a crosswalk would have been the proper solution...

I would tend to agree with this. I suspect all a crosswalk would have done was remove the possibility of a jaywalking charge. Of course in that case it would be good for the city. They would have put a crosswalk in, still have deaths, but not be liable since they made the appearance of trying to do something.

Crosswalks on busy streets with no light supporting them get ignored a lot. (this might vary from state to state). In fact I watched a girl cross in a cross walk, during a school travel time (morning), doing everything right (walking her bike), and she almost got run over. Not by the first car really, he stopped (rather quickly), but by the car behind the first car that hit the first car and almost pushed it into her.

The irony in my area is that people are so afraid to let their (rapidly enlarging) kids walk to school because it's so dangerous (you know, that's what the "news" says), they all drive them. Of course all these people rushing there kids to school (some of the more aggressive drivers around sometimes) is WHAT MAKES IT dangerous.