The challenge is deciding who decides that point. We'll pretty quickly get into political discussion down this road, but I sure as heck don't want legal associations with how every internet forum I am on behaves.

Less politically, there are a number of car meets that go on around the country. For the most part they are well-controlled and folks behave politely. I have been at a number where a "crew" rolled up and changed the environment. It would be unfair for everyone at the event to be arrested/charged/convicted because they were at a car event that got out of control, simply because a DA wants to make a name for themselves.

The side with the most money usually wins. Seeing as how the driver of the Range Rover drives a Range Rover, I'm thinking he's going to come out of this okay.

It's amazing what lawyers will do to make a name for themselves, especially when the target is wealthy.

The civil suit against the RR driver has the potential to turn out some big $$$ for anyone who's willing to represent the guy.

Criminal, yes. Civil, unfortunately no. If this happened in TX I would bet the driver of the RR would be able to sue the guy he ran over for damage to his truck, but since it happened in NY he will get sued and at BEST he will have to pay a large amount of money to settle the case.

I will never forget what my uncle's lawyer once told him (my uncle lives in NJ): "If you ever hit someone in NY, make sure you back up and kill the guy. It will go a lot easier for you in court."

And no, he wasn't kidding.

I doubt it given the circumstances of the situation, but it wouldn't be the first time in my life I was wrong.

I'd say the most likely outcome is an out of court settlement for medical costs and maybe a bit on top. Going to court is very expensive for the defending party (and usually either in the worst case free for the guy suing). It is often cheaper to settle out of court than it is to go to court and win (to say nothing of if you lose)

NY and TX have pretty similar laws on the civil side of the house.

In TX you "own the shot" so to speak. If there's collateral damage, it can come back to you civilly and criminally, even if your action was self-defense. You're probably more likely to find a friendly DA, but the laws are basically written the same.

In my CHL class we were taught that "every bullet you fire has a lawyer attached to it", so if you miss and hit a random bystander, you can expect a huge legal headache. That's when I switched to lower penetration ammo for HD use.

how do we know this range rover wasnt stolen? and these bikers were just trying to return it to its rightful owner?

or maybe it was being repoed

:rofl2:

Or maybe they were just stopping to tell him that his wife left her purse on the roof when she strapped in the baby.

Or maybe they were letting him know he had a brake light out, hence why the bike was slowing down in front of him.

Some truth to that, but there is nothing stopping the RR guy from filing a lawsuit against the bikers for assault either. There will be a lot of grey areas in this case for sure.

The only person I see who has a shot at suing the RR driver is the guy in the coma with a broken spine. Even then though, you can make the argument that he ceased to be a bystander the moment he chose to put his motorcycle in front of the SUV.

I don't know if you've already mentioned but just curious Red_Zed. What would you have done in that situation?

LOL!!! I'd be down.

I think if we want to place bets, it would have to be as a field, like if the driver gets off criminally, but sued civilly, beer gets awarded to...




I REALLY hope that at the end of all this, we acknowledge that we don't know everything, we acknowledge other peoples' opinions, and no hard feeling either way

It depends on what specifically happened, but I would not use deadly force in a situation where there was no other way to escape.


Backing up a bit, I would not be in that situation. I avoid states that do not allow for full use of a self-defense, so I would likely not be driving in NY in the first place.

If I came across a group of bikers taking up two lanes, I would move over to the right lane...because squids like that generally signal trouble. Legally not required, but the smart way to avoid conflict. If the accident was unavoidable and all that, I'd pull over and call the cops with the passenger taking a video recording in case things got messy.