Sound Verdict

Justice is done and was seen to be done in the case of van-driving Sommit Luangpakham who claimed to have momentarily nodded off to sleep as the explicable reason that he plowed into five cyclists on a beautiful, bright July week-end morning, sending them all into dangerous physical trauma. The windshield of his van was smashed after he impacted one of the riders so badly she was thrown up onto his van and strands of her hair and her blood deeply ingrained in the smashed glass.

Mr. Luangpakham was so oblivious to having hit the five cyclists in quick succession, one after the other, strewing their bicycles and their bleeding, broken bodies all over the road, that it was his impression he had merely, he said, hit a post. And therefore, he simply proceeded on, and continued driving until he reached his house, a short distance away. Whereupon, he drove the damaged vehicle halfway into the packed garage, so the front could not be viewed.

"I am relieved that the truth came out and that the result was the result and that it can be over, and I don't really feel one way or the other any anger or anything like that. I just don't have room for that, I guess", said a relieved Cathy Anderson, post-verdict. "I don't actually wish anything. It won't affect our lives. Our lives for the most part have been devastated by this. I have to leave that up to the justice system because they know far better than I do what is appropriate in this case."

Cyclist Mark White was struck by the lack of remorse evidenced on the part of Summit Luangpakham who implacably insisted that he hadn't realized he had struck people, not an inanimate object.

"(The trial) has lifted a great weight from my heart that my family and I have been bearing since my friends and I were struck down by the criminal negligence of one man, a man who has not shown any remorse for his reactions and who gambled his life and the lives of others by recklessly getting behind the wheel that morning and then fleeing the scene in an attempt to escape accountability for his criminal negligence."

Mr. Luangpakham had been out at a party with a group of friends. It was an all-night party where liquor was consumed, although Mr. luangpakham insisted he had not had any liquor himself. Despite that the arresting officers detected the odour of stale liquor on his breath. One of the cyclists, Robert Wein, had suffered the worst injuries, and though partially recovered has been left with a brain injury; it was thought at the time of the accident he might not recover, that his injuries would result in his death. He now gets about with the help of a walker.

"The jury did their job, and the prosecutor did a very good job proving the guilt. The testimony was eye-opening because it was mostly first-time information for me. I tried to disassociate myself from it, but it was hard when I saw the pictures", Mr. Wein added.

The verdict was a necessary one. Necessary to assure cyclists that harm done them by drivers not alert to their vulnerability and that due caution must be taken at all times, was taken seriously, as it needed to be. Due caution, in fact, must be taken by both drivers and cyclists. And the verdict is a required warning to all other motorists who don't take that need for caution around cyclists seriously enough.

After a seven-hour deliberation the verdict came down, guilty on five counts each of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and failing to stop at the scene of the collision. As an object lesson in choosing inappropriately, in accountability and in applying society's condemnation for harmfully illegal acts, this represents a just verdict.