A woman who wanted to save ducks faces 14 years in prison for causing death of two motorcyclist. - Polidicks

[QUOTE]A woman who parked her car on a highway to save some ducks has been found guilty of criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death. After several days of deliberations and asking the judge multiple questions, the jury found Emma Czornobaj guilty on all four counts. The verdict comes almost four years to the day after the crash that killed André Roy and his teenaged daugher Jessie. [...] On June 27, 2010 Emma Czornobaj, then 21 years old, parked her car in the left-hand lane of Highway 30 in Candiac because she spotted ducks on the median. She got out of her car and tried to herd the ducks into her car. Roy and his wife, Pauline Volikakis, were riding their motorcycles on the highway when they were caught off guard by the parked car. A provincial police officer testified at the trial that Roy, whose speed was estimated at 113 km/h and 129 km/h when he applied his brakes, collided with Czornobaj's car at between 105 km/h and 121 km/h. Neither was able to stop in time and they smashed into the parked car, with Roy dying at the scene in his wife's arms. [/QUOTE] [URL="http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/guilty-on-all-counts-for-woman-who-parked-for-ducks-1.1878346"]Source[/URL]

I'm pretty torn about this one. On one hand, a police officer parks in the middle of a freeway somewhere, intentionally blocking traffic, in my state to rescue some sort of animal in the road and he's a hero, and on the other, this woman was trying to do much the same, and instead is probably being regarded as a negligent fool. It's a shame too, because, while heavily dependant on the context (I'm not familiar with the speed limits, what type of roadway [how many lanes, how busy, etc], driving conditions), she was largely just trying to do what she thought was the right thing. Maybe she was an idiot about it, but, I mean, she was still just trying to save some wildlife. Try to do some good in the world and now you have the death of a father and daughter on your hands. Sucks for everyone involved.

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Not a very smart move lady, you don't just stop on a highway. You're asking to be rear ended and it pisses other people off. Run the damn ducks down if they don't move out of your way. I've seen people swerve out of a stray cats way and almost cause accident's.

Running over certain species of duck will get you fined roughly $5,000 to $15,000 by a Game and Fish department(in the States at least), but what she did is fucking stupid. She could of at the very least waved off to the traffic behind her that she intended on stopping. [quote]On June 27, 2010 Emma Czornobaj, then 21 years old, parked her car in the left-hand lane of Highway 30 in Candiac because she spotted ducks on the median[/quote] never mind she's a fucking idiot, and deserves the sentence she got.

14 years seems a bit much for a dumb mistake

[QUOTE=Matrix374;45181256]14 years seems a bit much for a dumb mistake[/QUOTE] Not really. From what I am reading, the lady did not even wave off people or show them that see had a plan to pull over. She literally stopped dead in the middle of traffic, and began waving the ducks into her car. From this we also see the fact that the people infront of the motorcyclist were paying attention to the women, and the motorcyclist were not paying attention at all, and went full speed into the cars infront of them. It seems like all parties are at fault here, but the lady is the biggest idiot of them all.

[QUOTE=laserguided;45181230]Not a very smart move lady, you don't just stop on a highway. You're asking to be rear ended and it pisses other people off. Run the damn ducks down if they don't move out of your way. I've seen people swerve out of a stray cats way and almost cause accident's.[/QUOTE] People are more interested in saving the lives of a few animals at the risk of human life.

[QUOTE=Matrix374;45181256]14 years seems a bit much for a dumb mistake[/QUOTE] basically double manslaughter? ok

Yeah, if she actually just came to an abrupt stop and immediately got out of the car, that's not good on her. The way I read and understood was that she had been parked for at least a solid thirty seconds to a minute and was in the process of trying to herd the ducks into her car, and the bikes ran into an immobile vehicle.

[QUOTE=download;45181289]People are more interested in saving the lives of a few animals at the risk of human life.[/QUOTE] Ducks are people too!

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;45181284]It seems like all parties are at fault here, but the lady is the biggest idiot of them all.[/QUOTE] Is it really a solution to put her in jail, though? And for that long? She'd get less for deliberately murdering someone!

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;45181284]Not really. From what I am reading, the lady did not even wave off people or show them that see had a plan to pull over. She literally stopped dead in the middle of traffic, and began waving the ducks into her car. From this we also see the fact that the people infront of the motorcyclist were paying attention to the women, and the motorcyclist were not paying attention at all, and went full speed into the cars infront of them. It seems like all parties are at fault here, but the lady is the biggest idiot of them all.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=usa;45181297]basically double manslaughter? ok[/QUOTE] yeah shes dumb but are you seriously saying she should be locked up for a fucking decade?

[QUOTE=Furioso;45181315]Is it really a solution to put her in jail, though? And for that long? She'd get less for deliberately murdering someone![/QUOTE] For double vehicular manslaughter? Usually it runs five to twenty year per person, so she got off with seven years per person. She got off pretty ligthly to be honest. I agree that it'd probably be better for something like two to five years in prison with some long ass parole, but her actions lead to two people getting killed, and others getting seriously injured. Also this line is probably what would of secured her sentence... [quote]Neither was able to stop in time and they smashed into the parked car, with Roy dying at the scene in his wife's arms.[/quote] Not sure about you guys, but hearing things like that makes every hair on my back stand. That's the type of thing I would not even wish on my enemies. [also my fucking spelling is terrible tonight.]

[QUOTE=download;45181289]People are more interested in saving the lives of a few animals at the risk of human life.[/QUOTE] To be honest, going at those speeds and hitting a duck isn't going to result in fun times for the biker anyway. Although the biker was, according to the estimates, over the speed limit anyway.

[QUOTE=Biscuit-Boy;45181159]I'm pretty torn about this one. On one hand, a police officer parks in the middle of a freeway somewhere, intentionally blocking traffic, in my state to rescue some sort of animal in the road and he's a hero, and on the other, this woman was trying to do much the same, and instead is probably being regarded as a negligent fool. [/QUOTE] I wonder what differences between a police car and a normal car are? I would hate to see that the police vehicles have high visibility lights and legal means to block traffic. And as you said perfectly, this women is a negligent fool.

Also, it doesn't sound like she stopped right in front of them, but that she stopped, got out, then the bikers came along and hit the car, with the bikers possibly not being able to respond in time because of their speed.

[QUOTE=RayvenQ;45181384]To be honest, going at those speeds and hitting a duck isn't going to result in fun times for the biker anyway. Although the biker was, according to the estimates, over the speed limit anyway.[/QUOTE] A duck takes up about a foot of roadspace, a car takes up an entire lane. Additionally, hitting a duck and crashing would be a skid-crash where your protective gear would take most of the hit, where hitting a car is a dead-stop crash where your body takes the hit.

[QUOTE=Riller;45181398]A duck takes up about a foot of roadspace, a car takes up an entire lane. Additionally, hitting a duck and crashing would be a skid-crash where your protective gear would take most of the hit, where hitting a car is a dead-stop crash where your body takes the hit.[/QUOTE] Depends where you hit the car, I hit a car on my bike once, missed the body of the car though. Even with protective gear, at those speeds, it's going to be brutal on you and still probably fatal. Also, I'm not sure how prevelant protective gear is in Canada (other than a helmet).

what a stupid bitch

14 years is a lot of time for a 21 year old to think about an honest, yet deadly mistake. Talk about life ruined.

[QUOTE=Matrix374;45181365]yeah shes dumb but are you seriously saying she should be locked up for a fucking decade?[/QUOTE] If you're dumb enough to do that shit and cause human death then yea, it's their blood on your hands. What kinda fucking retard stops in the dead middle of the left hand lane on a highway, run the ducks over if you have to.

[QUOTE=ultra_bright;45181464]What kinda fucking retard stops in the dead middle of the left hand lane on a highway, run the ducks over if you have to.[/QUOTE] What happens if her car had broken down instead of her doing something stupid? What about the motorbike which was estimated at possibly almost 40km/h over the speed limit? It seems like a collision of two people doing stupid things, but I would've thought that the higher onus would be on the moving driver considering that if the car had stopped for a proper reason, like a break down, they still would've collided considering all facts were otherwise the same?

Did this happen at night or something? while she's a moron for stopping in the middle of the highway, I don't know how you could drive directly into a stationary object (Unless it was around a curve or something) And what was the speed limit on the highway? Over here 120km/h limits are relatively rare.

[QUOTE=Biscuit-Boy;45181159]I'm pretty torn about this one. On one hand, a police officer parks in the middle of a freeway somewhere, intentionally blocking traffic, in my state to rescue some sort of animal in the road and he's a hero, and on the other, this woman was trying to do much the same, and instead is probably being regarded as a negligent fool. It's a shame too, because, while heavily dependant on the context (I'm not familiar with the speed limits, what type of roadway [how many lanes, how busy, etc], driving conditions), she was largely just trying to do what she thought was the right thing. Maybe she was an idiot about it, but, I mean, she was still just trying to save some wildlife. Try to do some good in the world and now you have the death of a father and daughter on your hands. Sucks for everyone involved.[/QUOTE] A police officer has flashers and a light bar and a siren and HID flashing taillights to alert people to his presence. Animals' lives are not worth the same as peoples' lives.

As far as I'm concerned, stopping ON the highway is not acceptable unless you're saving a human life. That is, if you have to stop to avoid hitting a person, then you stop. Just about any kind of animal? No, you can't stop. An exception would be a large animal that could cause a death in a collision, like a deer or moose. I wouldn't expect anyone to ram into a moose if they could have stopped instead. This woman parked on the highway for ducks? That's crazy dangerous.

[QUOTE=TheDecryptor;45181481]Did this happen at night or something? while she's a moron for stopping in the middle of the highway, I don't know how you could drive directly into a stationary object (Unless it was around a curve or something) And what was the speed limit on the highway? Over here 120km/h limits are relatively rare.[/QUOTE] Probably 100.

Was this at a blind spot on the highway or something? From what I read from the article, the motorcyclists seem to also be the cause of the accident. They were going way past the speed limit, and they obviously did not pay attention or keep a safe enough distance. I assume that the lady had been parked there a while before the motorcyclists slammed into her car, which means that they should've spotted the parked car a long distance away and adjusted their speed accordingly. Either they weren't paying attention to the road or the car was parked at a blind spot, like around a corner or something. But even then, you shouldn't be speeding around corners for the exact reason that you don't know what you might crash into around it. What if the situation was different? What if the woman didn't stop for ducks, but instead had a blown out tire or her engine failed? Wouldn't the motorcyclists still have slammed into her car anyways? I think that she was foolish to stop on the highway for some ducks, but at the same time, her sentence [quote]Czornobaj, who has no previous criminal record, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for criminal negligence and 14 years in prison for dangerous driving.[/quote] is quite severe considering that she had no harmful intent, and that the motorcyclists are also at fault.

[QUOTE=Trekintosh;45181508]A police officer has flashers and a light bar and a siren and HID flashing taillights to alert people to his presence. Animals' lives are not worth the same as peoples' lives.[/QUOTE] In this case they drove directly into a parked car, is adding a light to it going to make it any more visible? I'm assuming this happened during daytime though, if it was at night then obviously the situation is different.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;45181240]Running over certain species of duck will get you fined roughly $5,000 to $15,000 by a Game and Fish department(in the States at least), but what she did is fucking stupid. She could of at the very least waved off to the traffic behind her that she intended on stopping. never mind she's a fucking idiot, and deserves the sentence she got.[/QUOTE] I don't understand how you guys are siding against her in such a harsh sentencing. It's true that her actions resulted in something horrible happening, but could you really say that she's a menace that should be locked away from society? Hell, just look at what the family of the victim said about it: [quote]In the days after the deadly crash Volikakis said she did not blame Czornobaj for causing the deaths of her husband and daughter. In the courthouse on Friday she said much the same thing. "My feelings are that it's time that we go on. This will not bring [back] my loved ones," said Volikakis. "I have no expectations but I don't wish any ill will to anyone." Volikakis did not want to discuss a possible sentence for Czornobaj, waving off reporters and walking away when asked.[/quote] She in no way meant to hurt anyone, and she in no way deserves the sentence that she got. The justice system should function to keep people from hurting society by killing, stealing, hurting people in general locked up, and she in no way intended to, nor would she ever again repeat the same negligence, she even said so herself [quote]During the trial Czornobaj, testifying in her own defence, said if the same thing were to happen today "I would not have stopped."[/quote] The horrible experience by itself would have been enough to stop her from ever making the same mistake, such a ruthless sentencing is gratuitous and excessive. It's completely pointless to give 14 years to somone who never even intended to commit a crime. The DA sums this up perfectly at the end of the article [quote]Labelle, who has been a lawyer for around 30 years, pointed out that the case was a unique one. "It's the first time I do a trial where it is obvious that there is no criminal intent," he said. [/quote]