Probation --- yes!!!!!

Probation --- yes!!!!!

Wow - for killing two people? The 15-year license suspension is a joke.
She's 77 and in poor health. Way too little, way too late.

* w w w .patriotledger . com /archive/x356876693/Elderly-woman-pleads-guilty-gets-probation-for-fatal-Brockton-Hospital-crash

Elderly woman pleads guilty, gets probation for fatal Brockton Hospital
crash
By Kyle Alspach
The Enterprise
Posted May 06, 2008 @ 01:11 PM
Last update May 06, 2008 @ 04:39 PM

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

BROCKTON, Mass. -
A 77-year-old Rockland woman will serve 18 months of probation for crashing
her car into Brockton Hospital last fall, killing two people.

The driver, Jane Berghold, pleaded guilty this morning to charges of motor
vehicle homicide by negligent operation and negligent operation of a motor
vehicle for the Oct. 15 crash.

Brockton District Court Judge David Nagle accepted the guilty plea and
sentenced Berghold to 18 months of unsupervised probation.

Her driver's license will also be revoked for 15 years due to the guilty
finding.

Berghold declined to comment outside the courtroom. Her lawyer, Kevin
Reddington, said the finding allows for some "semblance of justice" while
not making life worse for Berghold, who suffers from several medical
conditions including breast cancer.

Mark Plante, the son of victim Susan Plante, spoke during the hearing and
said his mother "didn't hold grudges."

"Our family does not wish any future suffering on Jane Berghold as a result
of this tragedy," he said.

The crash claimed the lives of Dr. Mark A. Vasa, 58, of Norwell, chief of
radiation therapy at Brockton Hospital, and Plante, 59, of East Bridgewater,
a secretary in the radiation unit.

Two other employees, a physician and a radiation therapist, suffered
non-life threatening injuries.

Berghold had been driving to the hospital to consult with doctors when
police say she stepped on the gas pedal instead of the brake, sending her
car into the hospital's radiation department.


Kyle Alspach can be reached at kalspach@enterprisenews . com .



John B.

Re: Probation --- yes!!!!!

"John B." <jlb@computac . com > wrote in
news:1210173769.917241@web1.segnet . com :

> Wow - for killing two people? The 15-year license suspension is
> a joke. She's 77 and in poor health. Way too little, way too
> late.
>
> * w w w .patriotledger . com /archive/x356876693/Elderly-woman-
ple
> ads-guilty-gets-probation-for-fatal-Brockton-Hospital-crash
>
> Elderly woman pleads guilty, gets probation for fatal Brockton
> Hospital crash
> By Kyle Alspach
> The Enterprise
> Posted May 06, 2008 @ 01:11 PM
> Last update May 06, 2008 @ 04:39 PM
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
-
> ----------- ----
>
> BROCKTON, Mass. -
> A 77-year-old Rockland woman will serve 18 months of probation
> for crashing
> her car into Brockton Hospital last fall, killing two people.
>
> The driver, Jane Berghold, pleaded guilty this morning to
> charges of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation and
> negligent operation of a motor vehicle for the Oct. 15 crash.
>
> Brockton District Court Judge David Nagle accepted the guilty
> plea and sentenced Berghold to 18 months of unsupervised
> probation.
>
> Her driver's license will also be revoked for 15 years due to
> the guilty finding.
>
> Berghold declined to comment outside the courtroom. Her lawyer,
> Kevin Reddington, said the finding allows for some "semblance of
> justice" while not making life worse for Berghold, who suffers
> from several medical conditions including breast cancer.
>
> Mark Plante, the son of victim Susan Plante, spoke during the
> hearing and said his mother "didn't hold grudges."
>
> "Our family does not wish any future suffering on Jane Berghold
> as a result of this tragedy," he said.
>
> The crash claimed the lives of Dr. Mark A. Vasa, 58, of Norwell,
> chief of radiation therapy at Brockton Hospital, and Plante, 59,
> of East Bridgewater, a secretary in the radiation unit.
>
> Two other employees, a physician and a radiation therapist,
> suffered non-life threatening injuries.
>
> Berghold had been driving to the hospital to consult with
> doctors when police say she stepped on the gas pedal instead of
> the brake, sending her car into the hospital's radiation
> department.

She's 77. Sounds fairly reasonable to me, as she'll be in jail if
she gets caught driving. She is on probation for 15 months. She
might be dead by then.

Seriously, what good comes to putting a 77 year old in jail for 20
years?

Re: Probation --- yes!!!!!

Larrybud <larrybud2002@yahoo . com > wrote in
news:Xns9A97D014065D0larrybud2002yahoocom@204.153.245.20:

> "John B." <jlb@computac . com > wrote in
> news:1210173769.917241@web1.segnet . com :
>
>> Wow - for killing two people? The 15-year license suspension is
>> a joke. She's 77 and in poor health. Way too little, way too
>> late.
>>
>> * w w w .patriotledger . com /archive/x356876693/Elderly-woman-
> ple
>> ads-guilty-gets-probation-for-fatal-Brockton-Hospital-crash
>>
>> Elderly woman pleads guilty, gets probation for fatal Brockton
>> Hospital crash
>> By Kyle Alspach
>> The Enterprise
>> Posted May 06, 2008 @ 01:11 PM
>> Last update May 06, 2008 @ 04:39 PM
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> -
>> ----------- ----
>>
>> BROCKTON, Mass. -
>> A 77-year-old Rockland woman will serve 18 months of probation
>> for crashing
>> her car into Brockton Hospital last fall, killing two people.
>>
>> The driver, Jane Berghold, pleaded guilty this morning to
>> charges of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation and
>> negligent operation of a motor vehicle for the Oct. 15 crash.
>>
>> Brockton District Court Judge David Nagle accepted the guilty
>> plea and sentenced Berghold to 18 months of unsupervised
>> probation.
>>
>> Her driver's license will also be revoked for 15 years due to
>> the guilty finding.
>>
>> Berghold declined to comment outside the courtroom. Her lawyer,
>> Kevin Reddington, said the finding allows for some "semblance of
>> justice" while not making life worse for Berghold, who suffers
>> from several medical conditions including breast cancer.
>>
>> Mark Plante, the son of victim Susan Plante, spoke during the
>> hearing and said his mother "didn't hold grudges."
>>
>> "Our family does not wish any future suffering on Jane Berghold
>> as a result of this tragedy," he said.
>>
>> The crash claimed the lives of Dr. Mark A. Vasa, 58, of Norwell,
>> chief of radiation therapy at Brockton Hospital, and Plante, 59,
>> of East Bridgewater, a secretary in the radiation unit.
>>
>> Two other employees, a physician and a radiation therapist,
>> suffered non-life threatening injuries.
>>
>> Berghold had been driving to the hospital to consult with
>> doctors when police say she stepped on the gas pedal instead of
>> the brake, sending her car into the hospital's radiation
>> department.
>
> She's 77. Sounds fairly reasonable to me, as she'll be in jail if
> she gets caught driving. She is on probation for 15 months. She
> might be dead by then.
>
> Seriously, what good comes to putting a 77 year old in jail for 20
> years?
>

the lady probably is already extremely upset and repentant and likely would
not have driven again anyways.
Putting her in prison would not only shorten her life,it would COST the
state for her medical care,and be cruel and unusual punishment.
Plus wasting a prison slot that a real criminal could be using!

Nothing to be gained by imprisoning her.
She's already imprisoned by the loss of her DL,and her terminal illness.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua . net

Re: Probation --- yes!!!!!

"Jim Yanik" <jyanik@abuse.gov> wrote in message
news:Xns9A97E589D6A9Ejyanikkuanet@64.209.0.83...
> Larrybud <larrybud2002@yahoo . com > wrote in
> news:Xns9A97D014065D0larrybud2002yahoocom@204.153.245.20:
>
> > "John B." <jlb@computac . com > wrote in
> > news:1210173769.917241@web1.segnet . com :
> >
> >> Wow - for killing two people? The 15-year license suspension is
> >> a joke. She's 77 and in poor health. Way too little, way too
> >> late.
> >>
> >> * w w w .patriotledger . com /archive/x356876693/Elderly-woman-
> > ple
> >> ads-guilty-gets-probation-for-fatal-Brockton-Hospital-crash
> >>
> >> Elderly woman pleads guilty, gets probation for fatal Brockton
> >> Hospital crash
> >> By Kyle Alspach
> >> The Enterprise
> >> Posted May 06, 2008 @ 01:11 PM
> >> Last update May 06, 2008 @ 04:39 PM
> >>
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > -
> >> ----------- ----
> >>
> >> BROCKTON, Mass. -
> >> A 77-year-old Rockland woman will serve 18 months of probation
> >> for crashing
> >> her car into Brockton Hospital last fall, killing two people.
> >>
> >> The driver, Jane Berghold, pleaded guilty this morning to
> >> charges of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation and
> >> negligent operation of a motor vehicle for the Oct. 15 crash.
> >>
> >> Brockton District Court Judge David Nagle accepted the guilty
> >> plea and sentenced Berghold to 18 months of unsupervised
> >> probation.
> >>
> >> Her driver's license will also be revoked for 15 years due to
> >> the guilty finding.
> >>
> >> Berghold declined to comment outside the courtroom. Her lawyer,
> >> Kevin Reddington, said the finding allows for some "semblance of
> >> justice" while not making life worse for Berghold, who suffers
> >> from several medical conditions including breast cancer.
> >>
> >> Mark Plante, the son of victim Susan Plante, spoke during the
> >> hearing and said his mother "didn't hold grudges."
> >>
> >> "Our family does not wish any future suffering on Jane Berghold
> >> as a result of this tragedy," he said.
> >>
> >> The crash claimed the lives of Dr. Mark A. Vasa, 58, of Norwell,
> >> chief of radiation therapy at Brockton Hospital, and Plante, 59,
> >> of East Bridgewater, a secretary in the radiation unit.
> >>
> >> Two other employees, a physician and a radiation therapist,
> >> suffered non-life threatening injuries.
> >>
> >> Berghold had been driving to the hospital to consult with
> >> doctors when police say she stepped on the gas pedal instead of
> >> the brake, sending her car into the hospital's radiation
> >> department.
> >
> > She's 77. Sounds fairly reasonable to me, as she'll be in jail if
> > she gets caught driving. She is on probation for 15 months. She
> > might be dead by then.
> >
> > Seriously, what good comes to putting a 77 year old in jail for 20
> > years?
> >
>
> the lady probably is already extremely upset and repentant and likely
would
> not have driven again anyways.
> Putting her in prison would not only shorten her life,it would COST the
> state for her medical care,and be cruel and unusual punishment.
> Plus wasting a prison slot that a real criminal could be using!
>
> Nothing to be gained by imprisoning her.
> She's already imprisoned by the loss of her DL,and her terminal illness.
>
> --
> Jim Yanik
> jyanik
> at
> kea . net

Yes, I'm sure she's been "punished" enough - I don't argue with that. But
there was nothing to possibly prevent this from happening in the FIRST
place. That's the problem I have here.

I think drivers around retirement age should be tested regularly and not by
simply taking them out on the road for a cruise around the block. There
should be some type of computer evaluation of their reflexes, concentration,
problem-solving ability, etc. I realize that they wouldn't catch all of the
potential problem drivers, but isn't getting just ONE off the road better
than doing NOTHING AT ALL??

John B.

Re: Probation --- yes!!!!!


> Nothing to be gained by imprisoning her.

Agreed on both conclusion and reasoning. The remaining question --
an excellent and complicated and societally important family of
questions really -- is whether someone could have seen this coming,
and done something to prevent it.

Recurrent training and testing is probably a big part of it.
Everybody ages differently, and in my anecdotal experience (I'm not a
gerontologist and don't even play one on TV) another thing that would
be helpful is a good solid leading indicator of when the gradual
tolerable decline is coming to an end and the skills are about to fall
off a cliff.

Engine-computer programming that looks at very recent speed and asks,
"Does this person really want to suddenly give it a lot of gas from
low speed?" might be possible, as car companies (hopefully) finds more
ways to make vehicles friendly to/proof against an aging population.

Making buildings that are somewhat resistant to runaway cars (or
intentional ramming!) is a good second line of defense. I used to
live near a nice lady then in her 40s and in good health, with an
unremarkable driving record, whose unoccupied Volvo slipped out of
gear and/or wasn't held adequately by the handbrake in a sloping
parking lot, and introduced itself into a bank lobby. Mechanical
things fail, and people make mistakes. That's why our parking lot at
work, just to take one example, has barriers -- usually concrete-
filled six-inch standpipes -- to guard anything fragile and important
that's in proximity to cars and, especially, delivery trucks.

That's more aesthetically appropriate for an industrial setting
(especially since they're painted bright yellow, underneath the rubber
and paint smears), but nicer looking versions can be thought of. I'd
bet that's why the previous owner of my house cultivated a mimosa tree
and a couple big juniper bushes at the left front corner -- we're at
the outlet of a curve that some fools (perhaps with do-it-yourself
brain-chemistry augmentation) take 'way too fast for a residential
street; the neighbor at the apex has gotten a car or two in his front
yard, fortunately with little consequence, and is now erecting a
decorative rock wall. In a more unfortunate recent example, a
"sideshow" in Oakland, CA resulted in an accident in the wee small
hours that didn't hurt anybody but did destroy a house -- one of the
fools wiped out in such a way that it knocked the gas meter off its
moorings, whereupon the house caught fire. And I once was one of
several people doing a Sisyphus imitation on the front bumper of a big
old Dodge station wagon as it headed downhill toward the windows of a
grocery store, a delighted three- or four-year-old at the wheel
(fortunately with the engine off); even more fortunately, this
attracted a lot of attention and soon we could spare someone to get
into the car and step on the brake pedal.

This sort of thing is not uncommon at all -- physical separation of
traffic and inhabited buildings or critical/dangerous infrastructure
is a good idea.


--Joe

Re: Probation --- yes!!!!!

In article <4854c3c1-5456-4af6-a856-c72c627856f7@j33g2000pri.googlegroups . com >,
Ad absurdum per aspera <jtchew@california . com > wrote:
>
>Engine-computer programming that looks at very recent speed and asks,
>"Does this person really want to suddenly give it a lot of gas from
>low speed?" might be possible, as car companies (hopefully) finds more
>ways to make vehicles friendly to/proof against an aging population.

Wonderful. Some I'm driving along and some moron comes flying out
(ignoring a stop sign) from a side street, so I step on the gas (being in
a position where braking is only going to get me square on). My idiot
engine computer decides I really didn't want to do that and I get
hit when I could have avoided it.
--
There's no such thing as a free lunch, but certain accounting practices can
result in a fully-depreciated one.

Re: Probation --- yes!!!!!

> ways to make vehicles friendly to/proof against an aging population.

Looks as though this is getting some explicitly targeted R&D:
* w w w .nytimes . com /2008/06/22/automobiles/22OLDER.html

Re: Probation --- yes!!!!!

On Wed, 7 May 2008 11:22:28 -0400, "John B." <jlb@computac . com > wrote:

> A 77-year-old Rockland woman will serve 18 months of probation for crashing
>her car into Brockton Hospital last fall, killing two people.
>
>Her driver's license will also be revoked for 15 years due to the guilty
>finding.

What IDIOT of a judge decided that, if she sucks at driving at age 77,
she'll IMPORVE at it by the time she hits 92 (with no opportunity to
practice during the intervening 15 years)?

I guess he was just too much of a PUSSY to revoke the doddering old
fool's license permanently like she deserves.
--
Proud to be a wreckless driver.

Re: Probation --- yes!!!!!

"Scott in SoCal" <scottenaztlan@yahoo . com > wrote in message
news:p6o424t0tqbk3q3jd6sokk71ucsf5c4uao@4ax . com ...
> On Wed, 7 May 2008 11:22:28 -0400, "John B." <jlb@computac . com > wrote:
>
> > A 77-year-old Rockland woman will serve 18 months of probation for
crashing
> >her car into Brockton Hospital last fall, killing two people.
> >
> >Her driver's license will also be revoked for 15 years due to the guilty
> >finding.
>
> What IDIOT of a judge decided that, if she sucks at driving at age 77,
> she'll IMPORVE at it by the time she hits 92 (with no opportunity to
> practice during the intervening 15 years)?
>
> I guess he was just too much of a PUSSY to revoke the doddering old
> fool's license permanently like she deserves.
> --
> Proud to be a wreckless driver.

I was just talking to a co-worker and New Hampshire denied renewing his
92-year-old mother's license after she failed the road test --- THREE
TIMES!!!! Do you think the DMV would've felt good if she actually passed
the third time and then got into one of these "accidents"??

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

John B .

Re: Probation --- yes!!!!!

On Wed, 07 May 2008 19:12:28 -0700, Scott in SoCal
<scottenaztlan@yahoo . com > wrote:

>On Wed, 7 May 2008 11:22:28 -0400, "John B." <jlb@computac . com > wrote:
>
>> A 77-year-old Rockland woman will serve 18 months of probation for crashing
>>her car into Brockton Hospital last fall, killing two people.
>>
>>Her driver's license will also be revoked for 15 years due to the guilty
>>finding.
>
>What IDIOT of a judge decided that, if she sucks at driving at age 77,
>she'll IMPORVE at it by the time she hits 92 (with no opportunity to
>practice during the intervening 15 years)?
>
>I guess he was just too much of a PUSSY to revoke the doddering old
>fool's license permanently like she deserves.

Maybe he's gambling that she'll kick off before that day arrives....

--
"What about you? You got a problem with this?"
--Tony Soprano