Woman sentenced to 90 days in jail in stopping-for-ducks hap

What do you think this young woman deserves?

Jail time for her mistake	9.7%	[ 3 ]
Just community service with counseling	38.7%	[ 12 ]
Not jail, just counseling (give her a second chance)	35.5%	[ 11 ]
Other	16.1%	[ 5 ]
Total Votes:			[ 31 ]

[bittersweet69]

Quote:

Emma Czornobaj sentenced to 90 days in jail in stopping-for-ducks case

Emma Czornobaj will be going to jail for her fateful decision to stop for ducks on a highway in Candiac in 2010.

The 26-year-old was sentenced on Thursday to 90 days in jail, to be served on weekends.

She will also have to perform 240 hours of community service, and is banned from having a drivers' licence for 10 years.

On the evening of June 27, 2010, Czornobaj was driving on the westbound section of Highway 30 in Candiac when she stopped her car suddenly in the outside lane for a family of ducks that was crossing the road.

Two people riding on a motorcycle — 50-year-old André Roy and his 16-year-old daughter Jessie — crashed into her idle car from behind. Both of them died.

Czornobaj was convicted of two counts each of criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death.

Her defence lawyer had agreed to the community service, but thought she should receive three years' probation instead of jail time.

In handing down the sentence, the judge lashed out at Czornobaj for not realizing the seriousness of what she did.

Czornobaj has already appealed her conviction.

Source: http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news/2014/12/18/emma-czornobaj-sentenced-to-90-days-in-jail-in-stoppingforducks-case

[Alexander J Luthor]

Oh, you mean the worthless piece of s**t dad who was going the equivalent of over 20 MILES over the speed limit, wasn't wearing a helmet, and wasn't paying any damn attention to the car that was parked partly on the shoulder WITH its hazard lights on? I feel bad for his daughter, and the wife who (driving at speed) caught up to the wreck after it happened, but good riddance to that a*****e.

This girl shouldn't be punished with anything. When she looked up and down that straight highway there wasn't anyone in sight. How was she to know there was a reckless idiot far down the road behind her? That judge is a piece of s**t who doesn't seem to care if the dead reaped their own seeds.

[Henrika]

Alexander J Luthor

Oh, you mean the worthless piece of s**t dad who was going the equivalent of over 20 MILES over the speed limit, wasn't wearing a helmet, and wasn't paying any damn attention to the car that was parked partly on the shoulder WITH its hazard lights on? I feel bad for his daughter, and the wife who (driving at speed) caught up to the wreck after it happened, but good riddance to that a*****e.

This girl shouldn't be punished with anything. When she looked up and down that straight highway there wasn't anyone in sight. How was she to know there was a reckless idiot far down the road behind her? That judge is a piece of s**t who doesn't seem to care if the dead reaped their own seeds.

I mostly agree - she shouldn't have gotten any jail time as the crash was 99% the motorcyclists fault. I do think she deserved community service though, simply because she SHOULD have pulled over to the left side of the road, not at the right. Rules are rules and she didn't follow them, so she does deserve the community service IMO as her penance. Jail time seems utterly pointless though - she's extremely unlikely to "reoffend", and its essentially just wasting taxpayer dollars.

This is an improvement to the sentence though - initially they were threatening to give her like 25 years or something retarded. Thankfully she seems to have a good lawyers.

[Kai-Shan Valandria]

That's some bullshit right there. What happened was yes, she did stop for the ducks, and yes, she wasn't supposed to stop there. However, the donorcycle rider slammed into the back of of a car long after she stopped. They didn't change lanes to avoid her vehicle, and from the articles that came out when this first happened, the road was plenty wide. This guy also took out his own daughter, too, who was riding on the back of his bike. No, his bad driving was what caused his death.

The only thing I fault her for is not putting on her flashers. I can see that lending to some sort of negligence charge and three years or less of probation as mentioned in the article would've been fine. Sorry, I'm not going to beat on someone for trying to do something misguided but otherwise kind, and donorcycle riders usually drive like assholes anyway. No buddy, YOU watch out for the cars, instead of zooming around stupidly and pulling stupid a*****e stunts with other donorcyclists.

edit: Just saw the poll, and yes, counseling and community service would've been fine too. Just because someone died doesn't mean someone else has to PAY.

[Ratttking]

Kai-Shan Valandria

That's some bullshit right there. What happened was yes, she did stop for the ducks, and yes, she wasn't supposed to stop there. However, the donorcycle rider slammed into the back of of a car long after she stopped. They didn't change lanes to avoid her vehicle, and from the articles that came out when this first happened, the road was plenty wide. This guy also took out his own daughter, too, who was riding on the back of his bike. No, his bad driving was what caused his death.

The only thing I fault her for is not putting on her flashers. I can see that lending to some sort of negligence charge and three years or less of probation as mentioned in the article would've been fine. Sorry, I'm not going to beat on someone for trying to do something misguided but otherwise kind, and donorcycle riders usually drive like assholes anyway. No buddy, YOU watch out for the cars, instead of zooming around stupidly and pulling stupid a*****e stunts with other donorcyclists.

edit: Just saw the poll, and yes, counseling and community service would've been fine too. Just because someone died doesn't mean someone else has to PAY.

She claimed to have her hazard lights on, however witnesses contradicted her. I wonder if they were on but stopped working after her car's rear end was smashed from the high-speed impact of the motorcycle.

[Texadar]

Alexander J Luthor

Oh, you mean the worthless piece of s**t dad who was going the equivalent of over 20 MILES over the speed limit, wasn't wearing a helmet, and wasn't paying any damn attention to the car that was parked partly on the shoulder WITH its hazard lights on? I feel bad for his daughter, and the wife who (driving at speed) caught up to the wreck after it happened, but good riddance to that a*****e.

Can i have some proof here because i can't find anything to imply any of that.


Even now it's still probably speeding because it's the Passing lane you go fast in the Passing lane because you are passing
and he probably still would have slammed into the Civic even if he was driving at the speed limit.

She broke numerous laws under the Highway Traffic Act that resulted in the deaths of two people

She has gotten off lightly.

[bittersweet69]

I guess it was a bad combination of the young woman stopping to help wildlife and the motorcyclist and his passenger daughter driving well above the speed limit. "A provincial police officer testified at the trial that Roy, whose speed was estimated at 113 km/h and 129 km/h when he applied his brakes, collided with Czornobaj’s car at between 105 km/h and 121 km/h." There's also a possibility the motorcyclist got distracted by his wife, "who was driving another motorcycle behind her husband when the collision happened. She was driving more slowly and managed to avoid injury." The driver of the motorcycle was supposed to be paying more attention to the road ahead of him.

Quebec driver who stopped for ducks guilty in fatal crash

I'm truly sorry for the two people who died and for their families but I still think she doesn't deserve to go to jail, accidents do happen. Of course, she shouldn't have stopped on the highway on the left lane. She is only guilty of a bad decision, to stop her car on a highway to save some ducklings, there was no criminal intention at all.

[JCPenny Lane]

bittersweet69

I guess it was a bad combination of the young woman stopping to help wildlife and the motorcyclist and his passenger daughter driving well above the speed limit. "A provincial police officer testified at the trial that Roy, whose speed was estimated at 113 km/h and 129 km/h when he applied his brakes, collided with Czornobaj’s car at between 105 km/h and 121 km/h." There's also a possibility the motorcyclist got distracted by his wife, "who was driving another motorcycle behind her husband when the collision happened. She was driving more slowly and managed to avoid injury." The driver of the motorcycle was supposed to be paying more attention to the road ahead of him.

Quebec driver who stopped for ducks guilty in fatal crash

I'm truly sorry for the two people who died and for their families but I still think she doesn't deserve to go to jail, accidents do happen. Of course, she shouldn't have stopped on the highway on the left lane. She is only guilty of a bad decision, to stop her car on a highway to save some ducklings, there was no criminal intention at all.

I totally agree. Emma shouldn't be punished for doing a good deed but, since she stopped her car in the left lane of the highway and the motorcycle driver didn't have enough time to avoid the impact, she was convicted of "criminal negligence" causing death and "dangerous driving" causing death. Hey, she didn't plan to kill anyone, she was trying to rescue some ducks when the accident happened because of over speeding. In The Star article above, her defense lawyer made clear, “The fact that she was involved in the accident in the first place was a hard experience for her,” he said. “The fact that she had to go through a trial with a lot of publicity was tough and to be confirmed by 12 citizens, the jury, that the conduct was criminal is a hard blow.” At the end, they decided to put her in jail in order to send a message to society, that drivers do not stop on the highway for animals because it’s not worth it.

[Alexander J Luthor]

Texadar

Alexander J Luthor

Oh, you mean the worthless piece of s**t dad who was going the equivalent of over 20 MILES over the speed limit, wasn't wearing a helmet, and wasn't paying any damn attention to the car that was parked partly on the shoulder WITH its hazard lights on? I feel bad for his daughter, and the wife who (driving at speed) caught up to the wreck after it happened, but good riddance to that a*****e.

Can i have some proof here because i can't find anything to imply any of that.


Even now it's still probably speeding because it's the Passing lane you go fast in the Passing lane because you are passing
and he probably still would have slammed into the Civic even if he was driving at the speed limit.

She broke numerous laws under the Highway Traffic Act that resulted in the deaths of two people

She has gotten off lightly.

A different article on this incident was posted here months ago. I remember the stupid ones well. The guy was reckless as hell and I'll never pity him for that. Had he NOT been speeding like a devil, he would have seen the car stopped AND he would have had enough of a reaction time to both decelerate and switch lanes. If you're talking about just how fast he was speeding, back then the several articles posted had diagnostics saying the wreck could only have been so bad if he was going X amount of kms over the speed limit. A simple google did the math.