FYI, a few follow-up reports in the news today regarding the collision that killed UO student Craig Macfie:
- KEZI has a short piece about Craig Macfie’s life at UO.
- KVAL has a follow-up on the location of the collision.
- The Register-Guard has a piece that updates the case and tells a little bit about Macfie (and which also discusses the Pelkey case and the desire for more witnesses in that one).
- And KMTR’s report on Macfie includes a detail I didn’t see in the others: That Macfie’s family asked that any donations be made in Craig Macfie’s name to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
Eugene Bicyclist 
I can’t believe how many of the comments on some of the stories focus on the cyclist being lit-up. I know ninja bikers are a serious problem, but it’s irrelevant. No amount of lights will save you from a drunk asshole driving in the bike lane. There are far more posts condemning dark biking than drunk driving. What is wrong with these people? They are making all these negative and irrelevant assumptions about the victim, and giving Compton a walk.
Maybe it’s the “it could have been me” issue. As in “it could have been me who hit that cyclist because he wasn’t lit up.” But, no, it’s “It could have been me who drove to a bar, knew I had to drive home, drank a ton anyway, then got in my car and drove home, and murdered someone on the way while driving in the bike lane.” If this crash bring up tons of memories about how people drove drunk and got lucky, then they need to make some effing life changes.
I had to drive to a show the other day for a variety of reasons. So you know what I did? I didn’t drink, no matter how much I wanted to, because I knew I had to drive home. Is that so hard?
I can’t even bring myself to read all of the comments anymore. It’s too aggravating. Although I did respond to one guy on one of the stories in the past few days — he had gone off on the “cars-are-bigger, laws-of-physics” argument, concluding that bikes belong on the sidewalk.
I do have mixed feelings about the light issue. But to the question of is it irrelevant? At his point, in this case, it is irrelevant, because I have no idea if Macfie had lights or not. For all I know, he did, in which case why are people even talking about it? I wish the cops and D.A. would stop being so cop-and-D.A. and just tell us if he appeared to be lighted, so people aren’t just speculating.
I suppose the authorities think letting this information out will compromise their case somehow — who knows why they do what they do. But a consequence of that is that it allows the public discussion to almost veer into an assumption that he didn’t have lights. I guess it’ll come out in court at some point.
I was going to go off on a tangent about lights in general, but I’ll save that for a later post. Right now, this whole case just makes me sad, frustrated and angry. And you are right, Seager, in that the No. 1 issue here is drinking and driving.
I’m really happy to see Gliech’s 2 other collisions covered by the RG finally.
As much as I’m happy that the police and prosecutors do the right thing when drinking is involved, I worry that it’s just too much of the focus. Like we’ve all seen, if you drive just as badly without actually drinking, you don’t get punished.
Yes, Kevin, this thought occurred to me too. I’ve been trying to read some of the laws regarding vehicular homicide, and you really start to see how politics and advocacy effect the way laws are written. Killing someone by running over them with a car is a more severe crime if you are intoxicated. And you can understand how people would push for a law like that and how it would be passed — because people are trying to stop drunk driving. And maybe it has helped. Maybe drunk driving is less common today than it once was. Maybe. Maybe not. But yeah, that leaves someone who is just a really bad or reckless driver — while sober — facing a lesser charge. Which is kinda weird.
Anyway, I keep my fingers crossed that the R-G coverage today of the Pelkey case will bring a witness forward. With luck …