Quote:
Originally Posted by alnorth
I'm not going to be outraged at this at all, mostly due to the huge amount of doubt that must be overcome before you can blame Tony Stewart, and partially because of the incredible Darwin award-winning stupidity of Kevin Ward.
Regarding the "swerve" as the damning smoking gun showing intent, as much as people who don't know about dirt track racing want to use that, it is not conclusive. Because of the way dirt track racing works, drivers often use the throttle as much as their steering wheel to turn their car, so there is a legitimate reason why he may have chosen to do that unrelated to any intent to scare anyone else.
Its obviously also possible that Stewart did something stupid in a fit of anger, but no one is ever going to be able to prove that in court given how difficult it would be to see him and that accelerating in that situation in that type of racing does not at all show intent. To the extent that he may have killed him, I go back to Ward's incredible stupidity and the large amount of doubt available, and I'm just going to presume Tony Stewart is innocent. I also do not give the slightest damn about NASCAR, so I have no rooting interest here.
The people bringing up involuntary manslaughter situations or criminal negligence are way off-base here, and this is not AT ALL a money thing or a big-name thing. The proof just isn't there. This is not a car running a red light. It is not at all clear that Tony Stewart was negligent here, since intent can't be proven and it is not reasonable to ever assume that a driver might be walking in the middle of the track. On top of all that you have assumption of the risk where all drivers agreed to participate in an incredibly dangerous activity where even quasi-intentionally wrecking someone else is not illegal. Unless you can prove intent, which they can't here, there's no way anyone gets convicted for this sort of thing unless they are represented by an incompetent dumbass of a lawyer.
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only issue I have with this post is that after a wreck is is somewhat reasonable to assume someone might be walking on the track.
safety workers, possible emts, the tow truck/push truck driver sometimes...
now I fully admit none of them would/should be going after the car.