RV driver charged in fatal accident in Tennessee

Sad thing for everyone involved. I see a lot of people driving distracted or trying to go faster than traffic. It only takes a second for something like this to happen.

Many of us then thought he was negligent after reading the article and watching the video

MANY people behind the wheel of a large RV dont belong there! We have all seen that before

If I recall correctly, the general consensus was he would get charged, regardless of his statement which was he was coming around a "blind" corner and had "no where to go." That simply did not match the evidence.

my only question is with all the flashing lights which you can see for quite a distance and the slow moving traffic and every one trying to get to the other lane, what the heck was he thinking. he was negligent in my mind. was he on drugs legal or unlegal. he just plain blew it.

Slow down and drive safe! No reason to put yourself and other families in danger because your behind schedule! Slow down and enjoy the adventure!

Okay here goes, I have said it before and will say it again. There should be a test, written and driven to drive these large vehicles. No this will not stop every accident but many times people on this forum talk about how fast they drive their motor homes.

I have a commercial drivers license and rarely if ever exceed 60 MPH.
These large vehicles are not designed for speed. You may just have to stop them when a dangerous situation arises.

This is an opportunity to learn. SLOW DOWN and pay attention out there.

Have a safe holiday.

Pogoil.

Pogoil, I do tend to agree with you, however, I don't think driving at unsafe speed was as much to blame as was his inattention and negligence. If you followed this story when it happened, you know he probably wasn't speeding in regards to the posted speed limit. What he mainly did is ignored warning signs and slowing traffic and he did not take the proper defensive actions. I recall when he tried to blame the highway department because he admitted seeing a warning sign that said "Right Lane Closed Ahead." He claimed that if the warning side had said "Two right lanes closed ahead" then he would have known to get over. With this statement he admits to knowing that there may be congested traffic ahead and yet he doesn't slow down like everybody else. And he doesn't keep his eyes open for flashing lights or emergency vehicles. So yeah, he was obviously going too fast when he came upon the emergency vehicles, but it was his negligence in failing to head to the warnings that caused this accident.

rgatijnet1 wrote:

The Grand Jury determined that he was negligent and should be punished. Now, a court trial and a jury will examine the facts and assess an appropriate punishment if he is found guilty. That is the way our judicial system works. It is not punishment for the sake of punishment. It is punishment for committing a crime, if he is found guilty of reckless homicide, a felony.

A grand jury only determines whether or not they agree there is sufficient evidence to warrant an indictment. They do not determine guilt or negligence. That job belongs to a judge or jury that sees all of the evidence, not just the limited evidence presented by the prosecutor to secure the indictment.

Dutch_12078 wrote:

rgatijnet1 wrote:

The Grand Jury determined that he was negligent and should be punished. Now, a court trial and a jury will examine the facts and assess an appropriate punishment if he is found guilty. That is the way our judicial system works. It is not punishment for the sake of punishment. It is punishment for committing a crime, if he is found guilty of reckless homicide, a felony.

A grand jury only determines whether or not they agree there is sufficient evidence to warrant an indictment. They do not determine guilt or negligence. That job belongs to a judge or jury that sees all of the evidence, not just the limited evidence presented by the prosecutor to secure the indictment.

That is pretty much exactly what I said. The Grand Jury does determine there is sufficient evidence/guilt for a trial and they determined that there was a sufficient amount of negligence on the driver's part to go before a judge and jury to decide his guilt and punishment.
If the Grand Jury determined that he was not negligent, in other words, completely innocent, they would not have returned an indictment of reckless homicide, of which the prosecution feels they can get a conviction. The fact that they are going for reckless homicide, instead of a lessor offense, indicates that they had quite a bit of evidence pointing to his guilt.
The legal cost to defend this charge will be enormous.