House bill calls for tougher hit-and-run penalties
SALEM, Ore. -- The Oregon legislature will consider a bill aimed at making penalties harsher for drivers convicted of injury hit-and-run crashes.
House Bill 2542 would take away the driver’s license for three years of anyone convicted of leaving the scene in serious injury crashes.
Currently state law says drivers convicted of serious injury hit-and-run will lose their license for a year. That penalty jumps to five years if the driver kills someone in the crash.
The Oregon-based pedestrian advocacy group “Oregon Walks” wants that to change.
As Steph Routh of Oregon Walks points out, those injuries from hit-and-runs could be as serious as a coma.
“Regardless of whether it's a fatality or a serious injury, that the action that brought us there is not so different,” said Routh "Therefore the penalty should not be different.".
The three-year revocation would begin after a convicted driver serves their time behind bars.
The only good thing I can see out of pulling the scum's license for 3 years is that, he will most probably leave the state to get another license and be some other state's problem.Â
You know what tougher penalties is going to do. The criminal is going to think this is going to be bad, so better run. Tougher penalties is not going to solve the problem. Enforce the penalties we already have, put the criminal in jail, that will solve that particular problem, he or she can't run over someone again. Come on Progressives, let's start using some common sense instead of these knee jerk reactions to everything. Develop some conceptual skills, think!!!!
People should be jailed for flouting the laws of physics