Distracted driving has become one of the most common reasons for vehicle crashes on America’s roads. That’s why the Huron County Prosecutor’s Office is partnering with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to raise awareness about the potentially deadly risks from texting while driving. From April 12 to 16, 2018, as part of the U Drive. U Text. U Pay.campaign, law enforcement will be watching closely for distracted drivers.
All over the planet, a traffic crash is called an accident. It doesn’t matter if it is a vehicle hitting a tree without causing any injury, or a person getting injured, or worse case, someone dying in a crash; all of these collisions are routinely called accidents. However, with 94% of traffic crashes caused by human error,[1] the vast majority of crashes are never really “accidents.”
Judge Herrington ruled that while he believed Richard Krohn was reasonably afraid of an assault, he did not believe it was the defendant’s intent to harm or assault Richard Krohn. The court recognized the lower standard of probable cause, but found insufficient evidence that the defendant intended to assault Richard Krohn, that it was the Defendant’s intent to stop the tractor from being taken
Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point states that a pivotal turning point occurs in “that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” Did you know that by the year 1920 all states had made “wife beating” illegal? Astonishingly, it would take another fifty years before the tipping point would occur and society would begin to see domestic violence as something far more insidious than “just a family matter”.
In 2014, Sheriff Hanson alleged that Prosecutor Rutkowski committed public misconduct and requested the Attorney General’s office investigate his allegation. On Monday, July 17, 2017, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office declared that they found “no wrongdoing in the handling of this matter.” After conducting an extensive and thorough investigation, neither Attorney General Schuette nor his investigators had any concerns on how the Special Prosecutor was appointed or how the case was resolved by the Special Prosecutor.
Victims come from all walks of life, but one frequently present risk factor is a sense of alienation. The average age of recruitment is 12 years old, but age is not a protective factor. Transient youth, those who are homeless, have a one in five chance of being recruited for commercial sex trafficking within 3 months of being homeless and young adults with little to no supervision are at elevated risk. Individuals who already feel like outsiders due to a national, gender, or LGBT identity are also at a greater risk. People with victim mentality or little to no self-reliance are easy targets for recruiters. Poverty is a risk factor, however, higher socio-economic status is not a protective factor.
You see, generation to generation, families pass on parenting styles; gentle or harsh, right and wrong. We know only what we learn, and we learn often by what has been done to us. Unless we receive education to know better, we remain trapped in the old, and sometimes dysfunctional and harmful styles of parenting, and will repeat what we know /what we have learned – and we will sometimes pass on a legacy of abuse. But there is hope. When we know better, we do better.
