Fourteen Years

In Illinois, you'll see the signs near most work zones: “Hit a worker, $10,000 fine, 14 yrs jail.” 14 years? Are they serious? 14 years for an accident?

Every time I see these signs I am struck by how astoundingly stupid this law is. In criminal justice there is the theory that penalties must be proportionate. If, for example, you sentence robbers to life in prison, it will encourage robbers to kill their victims to avoid capture.

Here, we're talking about an accident. It's not “14 years if you're driving recklessly and you kill someone.” It's just hitting someone, with no further qualification. If I hit a worker by accident, how would I react? I would back up, make sure he was dead so he couldn't talk, and then take it on the lam.

The worst part is that I'm not kidding. I've thought about it. There is no meaningful difference between a 14-year sentence, a life sentence, and a death sentence, not for someone like me. They could come after me if they wanted, but either I'd get away, or I'd go out like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And, as with Butch and Sundance, they'd better bring the whole Bolivian Army, because that's the only way I'm going out.

Illinois is well-known for Nazi-like traffic enforcement. Rather than worry about actual crime, they send more revenue agents onto the highways to collect taxes from motorists at the expense of safety. If you look, you can find stories of them setting up actual entrapment stings enforcing “Scott's Law,” which requires you to move to the left lane when a police car is stopped on the shoulder – which is the usual custom, of course, but most out-of-staters won't know it's an actual law here and that the summons requires a court appearance.

But this 14-year thing is way over the top.