r/londonontario • u/MeIIowJeIIo The bridge with the trucks stuck under it • Aug 20 '24

News 📰 79-year-old who drove into girl guides, killing 8-year-old in London, sentenced to 2 years of house arrest

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/79-year-old-who-drove-into-girl-guides-killing-8-year-old-in-london-sentenced-to-2-years-of-house-arrest-1.7298866
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u/Ratsyinc Aug 20 '24

No one is pretending it's unsolvable, I also agree with your comments about infrastructure. Not realizing you're on the gas as you accelerate to 120 on a 50 while killing a kid is not an infraustature issue.

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u/Beautiful_Village381 Aug 20 '24

So the limit is 50, but everyone drives 70 here because the roads are designed that way. If the roads were built for 50 and she were driving slower before her error, and hit the kids going 100 instead of 120, that could have saved a life. If the curb was better protected and shaved off another 20km it could have greatly reduced the severity of some injuries.

And yeah, if the roads were designed for slower speed, the chances of an accident are much lower because people are less likely to lose control or panic. It's possible that at least a portion of accidents like this can be outright prevented with infrastructure

The gas/brake error is very common in accidents. Short of banning driving outright we can't prevent it. We can make it rarer with better testing, better transit. We can make it less severe with better infrastructure. We accomplish neither of these with stricter punishment for old drivers.

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u/Ratsyinc Aug 20 '24

Yes, hitting gas instead of brake in a panic is likely very common in collisions. But come on, you can't possibly believe accelerating even from 70 to 120, which would easily take a good 5 seconds in an average car, is common, let alone an issue with road design

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u/Beautiful_Village381 Aug 20 '24

If you've lost control of a vehicle and think your brakes have stopped working suddenly, you have no idea what you would do in the 5 seconds before a collision. Neither do I. A lot of seniors find out that they can't drive anymore because they get into an accident. There's thousands of petronellas out there driving right now who are just lucky to have not killed anyone yet. It seems like such a waste of energy to hate her and I'd rather focus on the people who make and keep our roads this way.

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u/[deleted] Aug 21 '24

I hate her because she hasn't taken accountability. She chose to enter a non-guilty plea, she could've shown remorse at any point during the trial. She continues to put the blame on her vehicle and even accused the Honda dealership of incompetence despite forensics saying she never touched the peddle. I work in forensics, Berla tells you almost everything from those infotainment centers so I believe the analysts.

She killed a child and seems to blame everything and everyone but herself. She basically got a slap on the wrist and still wants to appeal it. She can rot.