A lot of transportation stuff happened during the 2023 state legislative session. There were major budget wins through the Move Ahead Washington transportation package, which included unprecedented funding for safety projects as well as an e-bike incentives program that still has yet to roll out to residents. But legislators also tried for a third time to make the so-called “vulnerable user law” an effective legal response to traffic collisions that kill or seriously injure people who are not inside a car or truck. Those changes came with a delayed 2025 start, 20 months after they were passed.
As of January 1, a person who kills a “vulnerable user” while driving negligently will be guilty of “negligent driving with a vulnerable user victim in the first degree,” a newly-created gross misdemeanor, and shall be fined at least $1,000 (up to $5,000) and lose their driver’s license for 90 days. They may also face up to a year of jail time. Use of the word “shall” here means that a judge cannot reduce the sentence below the minimums set in the law. So long as the police and prosecutors apply the law as written, someone who kills a person in a crosswalk because they failed to yield, for example, will be losing their license for 90 days and paying $1,000 at minimum. Those penalties still pale in comparison to the loss of a life, but they are significantly stronger than the way things used to be.
Someone whose negligent driving resulted in a serious injury rather than death would be guilty of “negligent driving with a vulnerable user victim in the second degree,” an offense that is mostly unchanged from the previous law. They may face the same penalties as under the first degree infraction, but they can instead attend a hearing and request a lower fine and no loss of license so long as they attend traffic school and community service related to traffic safety for durations set by the court.
The state initially passed the vulnerable user law in 2012 to address the painful and insulting lack of consequences for injuring or killing someone with a car or truck. One prime example at the time was John Pryzchodzen, who was biking up Juanita Drive in Kirkland when a teenager driving a pickup swerved onto the shoulder and stuck him from behind, killing him. Though it was clearly the teen’s fault according to a witness and investigators, he was only fined $42 for an “unsafe lane change.” It’s the same ticket someone could get just by a police officer observing an unsafe lane change and pulling them over. The fact that he killed a person had no impact on the legal consequence.
There are existing laws on the books for serious vehicular crimes such as vehicular assault or reckless driving, and those felony charges supersede any of these lower-level negligent driving charges. But what if someone simply makes a driving mistake that leads to tragedy? A moment of inattention, for example, or failing to fully look before proceeding? People are responsible for the harm they cause while making such traffic infractions, but they aren’t felonies. The state shouldn’t be packing prisons with bad drivers, but people should have to face at least some significant legal consequence for killing or seriously injuring a person. That’s what the vulnerable user law tries to accomplish.
The 2023 law was the second attempt to strengthen and clarify the 2012 vulnerable user law. In 2019, the legislature significantly rewrote sections of the law outlining the responsibilities that people driving have toward vulnerable road users such as people riding bikes. The law still requires law enforcement and prosecutors to be familiar with how to properly record and enforce a negligent driving charge, which has been a struggle in the past.
Along with delaying the law from 2024 (as passed by the House) to 2025, the Senate also added a requirement that the Washington Traffic Safety Commission produce such information “subject to funds appropriated for this purpose.” PSAs make a lot of sense because this law change can only act as a deterrent if people know about it. The commission did produce a handful of text gifs and a 45-second online video about the new law, which been viewed 16 times in 3 months as of press time:
I’m not sure these were worth holding the law for a year. I know the budget is limited, but this seems like a missed opportunity to chip away at our shameful social contract that all but absolves people of responsibility for killing or injuring others so long as they do it with a car. Perhaps this is too much to ask of a PSA campaign, but the current material doesn’t feel very forceful or urgent. People should know that they will lose their license for 90 days if they kill someone, even if it was an “accident.” No amount of inattention is OK when people’s lives are at stake.
Here are the de-animated images from the campaign (since the animations were kind of annoying):
Leave a Reply