Missouri drivers can kill with impunity

A Kansas City Star article covers an issue of interest to bicyclists and the Missouri Bicycle Federation. MoBikeFed has, for the past two years, sponsored legislation that would increase penalties for drivers whose unsafe and illegal acts injure or kill others.

Missouri drivers can, essentially, kill with impunity through their bad and unsafe driving.

In the collision discussed in the Star article, Seamus Jerome Monahan, who had his driver's license suspended about a month and half before the accident, has been charged only with two misdemeanors, because Missouri law precludes more serious charges:

Gruber, 50, of Spring Hill, was fatally injured when his motorcycle and a Dodge Ram pickup truck driven by Monahan collided in the intersection of 199th Street and Moonlight Road, west of Spring Hill. Gruber was wearing a helmet but was unconscious when emergency workers arrived. He was pronounced dead several hours later at a hospital, according to authorities. . . .

Both charges that Monahan faces are misdemeanors. The conviction on the homicide charge could carry a sentence of up to one year in the county jail. A more serious felony charge of involuntary manslaughter typically only applies in cases in which a driver was intoxicated or was fleeing police and caused a fatal collision.