Listen, the law in Pennsylvania is still weaker than most in America, but even baby-steps have to be celebrated. Here’s a blurb from state Rep. Dave Reed’s website about a law that Gov. Tom Corbett signed into law last week:
House Bill 208 closes a loophole in existing law that unintentionally incentivizes a hit-and-run driver to flee the scene, especially if the driver is intoxicated.
Currently, a fatal hit-and-run accident is a third-degree felony that carries a mandatory prison term of at least one year, with a maximum sentence of seven years. By comparison, a fatal accident that involves a drunk driver is a second-degree felony with a much stiffer penalty range of three to 10 years in prison.
Due to the discrepancy in penalties, drunk drivers involved in an accident that causes death actually have an incentive to leave the scene, sober up and turn themselves in once they are no longer intoxicated in order to avoid the stronger drunk driving charge.
House Bill 208 increases the penalty for a fatal hit-and-run accident from a third-degree to a second-degree felony. This, in combination with an expanded ability of judges to provide a longer prison sentence though a sentencing enhancement, will ensure fair penalties are enforced. Moreover, the ultimate goal of the bill is to help ensure that in these cases drivers stop to render help rather than flee.
Reed first introduced the legislation following the death of Sean Pearce of Burrell Township, Indiana County, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding his bicycle on state Route 119 north of Blairsville on July 15, 2005. The case involving Pearce was one of several high-profile examples across the state highlighting the need for a change in the existing law.
“Over the last several years, we have heard of far too many instances where individuals have been killed by hit-and-run drivers and it is later determined that the driver was intoxicated at the time of the accident,” Reed said. “Our laws must help protect the victims and enforce justice. Fortunately, with House Bill 208 now law, we have ensured that will take place.”
UPDATE: Having paid close attention to this since I got hit-and-ran, I sensed that what was passed was a bit different than what state Sen. Larry Farnese and others had proposed in recent years. His spokesman Cameron Kline explained it as such:
The basic difference is that with HB 208, the prosecutor has lots more discretion if he/she wants implement the mandatory minimum sentence, and SB 888 and SB 889 requires that they meet the mandatory minimum sentence.
Full disclosure: Farnese, against whose campaign I worked during a journalistic hiatus in the spring of 2008, championed the cause after visiting me in the hospital a few months after he won the state-senate seat. It was an effort, and a classy move, for which I’ll be forever grateful.