Last week, Keyworth Cleveland Birch was riding on the shoulder of Route 328 in Caroline County, Maryland when he was struck from behind by a car driven by Margaret Ann Satterfield. This happened in the middle of the day and the news reported that the car "veered off the road onto the shoulder". Birch later died from his injuries.
Satterfield was charged with Failure to Control Speed (punishable up to $130 and 3 points), Negligent Driving ($140 fine and 1-3 points), and Failure to yield the right-of-way in a bike lane ($1000 and 3points). But late last week the state decided not to prosecute these charges.
It's possible the state is choosing to pursue harsher penalties or that there are some facts that we don't know (perhaps the driver had a heart attack or something) that would make any charges inappropriate. I've reached out to the State's Attorney for Caroline County and if I hear anything I'll report it. But this should be watched.
Update: According to the State's Attorney, these charges were issued before the cyclist's death.
"Those charges were dismissed to allow the police to conduct a full investigation including crash reconstruction to determine whether more serious charges are appropriate, such as manslaughter. Allowing the original charges to proceed in the meanwhile could implicate some due process and double jeopardy issues. ...the nature of [any new] charges will depend on the final results of the investigation. It may be that they will issue similar or identical charges to the original."
we wouldn't want to trouble the scofflaw drivers, would we? because this one time a cyclist went through a stop sign and this is totally the same thing.
Posted by: Mike | June 10, 2014 at 07:23 AM
tragic that death was required to bring serious charges. "mangled to within an inch of your life? points on your license. dead? ok ok, we'll look into it"
Posted by: AtlasCesar | June 10, 2014 at 10:32 AM
They're looking at charging her with gross negligence then if they're worried about double jeopardy.
The crash reconstruction initial report should have been done the day of. That's standard of MSP Troopers.
Of course if they offer similar or identical charges to the original, then she can ask for an immediate dismissal.
Posted by: T | June 10, 2014 at 01:37 PM