Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Attorneys and driving records

I think almost all of us speed and have made mistakes while driving, but this guy takes the cake: Chris Christie was driving the wrong way down a wrong way street when he hit a motorcyclist. He told the reporting police officer that he's a U.S. Attorney, and the police officer decided not to cite Christie. What a guy. I'm not sure what the worse problem is -- the obvious corruption of the Elizabeth, NJ P.D., or a man with influence getting his way.

Christie reminds me of former South Dakota Attorney General, Governor and Representative Bill Janklow who blew through a stop sign at 70 mph in a 55 zone and killed motorcyclist Randolph Scott. Janklow was convicted of manslaughter and served a whopping 30 days in jail. Unbelievably, Janklow's license to practice law was reinstated in 2006. Probably part of the reason the local attorney even charged Janklow was because motorcyclists are a noticeable crowd in South Dakota politics, and they made sure their collective voice was heard in this case.

What do you bet that Toronto attorney Michael Bryant, who killed a bicyclist last week with his Saab, will be acquitted?

6 comments:

Adrienne Johnson said...

It only goes that way if we let it. If we all speak up, then things have to change.

Zoogy said...

What happened to the motorcyclist? What happened to his bike? Was he injured? Did he die? Did he press charges? Did the cop let him off as an agreement with the motorcyclist? Was there a sign out of place? Can I hear all the facts before you condemn this man publicly in a partisan fashion. Lord know Corzine never did ANYTHING wrong.

Michael said...

Wow, I never knew this...Chris Christie is actually running for Governor of New Jersey right now!

Yokota Fritz said...

I wasn't aware of Christie's party affiliation until after I posted, but if it will placate you I'll note another prominent example of a powerful politician whose bad driving was excused from prosecution -- Ted Kennedy at Chappaquiddick.

Cafn8 said...

I read about this in my local newspaper (in New Jersey). Details of what happened to the motorcyclist were conspicuously absent. The article did say:

"Christie was driving a rented BMW sedan and apparently had lost his way when he attempted to turn right onto a street that was one-way in the other direction, according to the police report. A motorcyclist, Andre Mendonca of Elizabeth, was riding towards Christie, and both men saw one another and put on the brakes, police said. Christie's vehicle came to a stop, and the motorcycle then 'fell on its side and slid into his vehicle,' according to the police report."

It goes on to say that the motorcyclist was taken to the hospital, Christie's car was towed.

Sounds like a pretty significant collision to me.

The article can be found here:
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/gop_gov_candidate_chris_christ_2.html

geoffrey said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufM7zvX3-tM

^security cameras