Driver charged with vehicular homicide in hit-and-run of Old Bridge resident

The only caveat here is that the crash happen and is being prosecuted in the Pittsburgh area.

You may have read via the New Jersey Bicycle Pedestrian New Digest an article that recently appeared in The Star-Ledger concerning a Old Bridge man killed in a hit-and-run accident that also left another woman critically injured. A local Pittsburgh NBC affiliate covered the crash in a bit more detail. The suspect, Derek Powell faces numerous charges including:

• aggravated assault,
  
• accidents involving death or personal injury,
• homicide by vehicle

I'm quite sure leaving the scene of an accident and tampering with evidence is also on the list but was not mentioned in the article. But what you DON'T see on this list of charges here is DWI or any other charge indication that Powell was intoxicated during the accident.

All too often in New Jersey drivers get off with little more than a 2 point moving violation for failing to yield to a pedestrian (slightly more if they are unlucky) if they kill a pedestrian and are clearly at fault (but dead men tell no tales) and are not drunk or fleeing from police.

I'm glad to see that there is a prosecutor somewhere that understands the harsh realities of vehicular violence and just doesn't dismiss such crashes as mere "accidents."

Okay, admittedly there are some occasional exceptions to the lax prosecution of vehicular violence against bicyclists and pedestrians here in New Jersey but this is all too rare.