Rita Hulsman’s husband Steve was killed December 21 when a man allegedly driving with a suspended license turned left in front of him while he was biking on Marine View Drive SW at 46th Ave SW. Now, in addition to mourning her loss, Rita is also “dismayed and deeply saddened” that King County Prosecutors are not pursuing charges against the person responsible and Seattle is considering “only minimal charges,” according to a letter she sent recently to officials in the Seattle City Attorney and King County Prosecutor offices, among others. She also sent a copy to Seattle Bike Blog, posted below.
No charges have yet been filed, according to city and county court databases. Seattle Bike Blog policy is to not name suspects until they have been publicly charged. The police report alleges that the 53-year-old suspect was driving a vehicle without a legally-required ignition interlock device due to a history of DUI convictions from years ago. Officers only conducted a visual sobriety check and did not take a breathalyzer reading or draw blood for lab testing. Officers cited the suspect for negligent driving in the second degree and driving with a suspended license.
Despite the serious injuries, the Seattle Police Traffic Collision Investigation Squad did not assign a detective until learning of his death a few hours later, after the scene was cleared and on-site evidence was gone. Scenes of serious collisions are often closed for as much as several hours as investigators process the scene, but that did not appear to happen here. Instead, the detective used responding officer reports and footage from officer-worn cameras to piece together a collision report. In the report, the man admitted he did not see Hulsman before turning even though the person making the same turn before him did see Hulsman thanks to his bicycle headlight. Despite all this, the investigator concluded, “I did not find any evidence of criminal driving behavior (e.g. reckless, impaired) by [the suspect] that contributed to this collision.”
Police can recommend charges, but the decision about what charges (if any) to file ultimately falls to the King County Prosecutor for felony-level crimes or the City Attorney for lower-level crimes.
“I know that filing more serious charges against the driver will not bring my husband back to me,” Rita wrote in her letter. “But this driver clearly should not have been behind the wheel on the day my husband died. And to allow the driver to skate by without taking meaningful responsibility for the collision that ended my husband’s life is unjust to my husband and to all of us who mourn him.”
On top of all this, Rita recently received a slew of medical bills for Steve’s unfortunately short stay in the hospital following the collision because the suspect was driving without insurance. At the urging of friends, she started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover these costs. The total was up to $19,000 as of press time. In an update Sunday, Rita said that their medical insurance will be able to cover most of the bills after all, which is at least one weight off her shoulders. She said remaining funds will go to “programs that support cycling awareness and safety.”
Below is Rita’s letter:
Regarding: Case #2023-366160, date 12/21/2023
Dear Ms. Davison et al,
I am the widow of Steve Hulsman. Just over two months ago, I lost my dear husband and best friend when he was struck and killed by a left-turning vehicle in our neighborhood in West Seattle while riding his bicycle. As you no doubt understand, I am heartbroken by losing Steve so suddenly and unexpectedly. And I am just as heartbroken every time I think about the many others who are also devastated by his death including our three grown children, our young grandson, Steve’s seven brothers and sisters and their families, as well as my five siblings and their families and our many neighbors and friends.
In addition to the deep sense of loss I feel constantly, my heartbreak deepens every time I think about the life-ending injuries Steve suffered as a result of this collision. It is especially horrifying to me because, as I understand it, the driver of the vehicle involved in the collision was unlicensed, has many previous driving violations on his record, was supposed to–but didn’t–have an interlock device on his car, and he had no auto insurance. And yet, I have recently learned that the City of Seattle is considering filing only minimal charges against the driver. I am also dismayed and deeply saddened to learn that King County is declining to file any charges at all against this driver.
I know that filing more serious charges against the driver will not bring my husband back to me. But this driver clearly should not have been behind the wheel on the day my husband died. And to allow the driver to skate by without taking meaningful responsibility for the collision that ended my husband’s life is unjust to my husband and to all of us who mourn him. Furthermore, I have little doubt that, given the driver’s previous record and behavior, it is likely he will continue to drive, suspended license or not, insured or not, and he could injure or kill another innocent person.
I therefore respectfully ask you to reconsider your plans to bring only minimal charges or none at all against him. I also request that I and any other family members who feel the need to submit statements about how Steve’s death has affected us be informed of how, where, and when to do so.
Yours truly,
Rita Hulsman
Comments
12 responses to “Widow asks Seattle and King County to take action against person who killed Steve Hulsman”
I would advise Rita to hire a good attorney who specialized in bike laws/accidents. A list can be found here (I can personally vouch for Catherine Fleming): https://cascade.org/resources/bike-attorneys
I wish Rita and her family all the best.
This is not the first time a driver who caused a fatal collision was required to have an ignition interlock and did not have one. My question is why is there no followup to verify that such drivers install an interlock?
The City of Seattle simply does not deserve the accolades it receives as a bike-friendly city because of its lackadaisical attitude towards holding drivers accountable for deaths, injuries, or aggression towards cyclists.
Many years ago, I was intentionally side-swiped by a motorist. There was a witness and I had the license plate number. Nevertheless, I had to push the City every step of the way to get them to prosecute. Even then, they switched prosecutors the morning of the case, he had no idea what was going on, and he was clearly far from the City’s star prosecutor.
The City of Seattle makes it loud and clear by their actions, that they do not truly care about cyclists safety, because there are no consequences for hurting or even killing them.
It is utterly shameful.
Progressives in Seattle constantly push for removing consequences and accountability for all manner of crime regardless of their externalities against the city and its inhabitants.
Why in the world would we expect them to hold somebody doing the one thing Seattlites cherish more than anything else (driving cars) accountable?
This is the world SBB has been advocating for for the last five years. I’m sure the driver’s crimes were a result of the system inequities of society and not due to their own agency. To hold the driver accountable would be extremely prejudice.
The problem with this comment is that it suggests that in cities that are much “tougher on crime,” there are aggressive prosecutions of drivers who kill cyclists. But I’m not familiar with any city in the USA where that is the case.
Last I checked the tough-on-crime candidate won the DA race, so the ball’s in the conservatives’ court on this one. As a progressive in Seattle I don’t have easy, obvious answers for at least some of the questions raised by this case — maybe the conservatives do!
As a daily bike commuter and a human being, I understand why Rita Hulsman is encouraging the criminal prosecution of the person who killed her husband. Steven Hulsman should be alive today.
As a lawyer representing seriously injured people and the families of those killed by the negligence of others for more than thirty years, I have seen how the civil justice system works very differently than the criminal justice system. One big reason civil prosecutions can be successful when criminal prosecutions fail– or are never even attempted– is that, while criminal prosecutors need to prove cases “beyond a reasonable doubt”, the standard of proof to win a civil case is much lower—we only need to show that something is more probably true than not true.
Just like criminal prosecutors, civil lawyers can’t bring Steven Hulsman back, but as Anita Elder commented, it can be helpful to consult with an experienced civil attorney, especially after a tragedy like this, and bike lawyers can be particularly helpful. I can vouch for attorney Catherine Flemming (we both serve on the board of Seattle Neighborhood Greenways) as well as for the lawyers at Washington Bike Law, the firm I founded. We are working to prevent road violence, but we know how to use the legal system to make up for the harms inflicted by negligent drivers on streets that are not reasonably safe for ordinary travel.
After more info has come out about this, the initial response and reports have not aged well.
It turns out the driver had:
•Expired License
•No insurance
•No required Interlock
•No actual drug test
Was he allowed to drive off with an expired license and no insurance? Seems like they would check that at the scene… A lot of motornormativity at play here.
As a non-lawyer that knows a handful of law words … I remember years ago we were excited that we were getting a Vulnerable User Law, which in broad strokes seemed like a strong statement from the legislature that we would hold drivers responsible for looking out for people outside of cars. And since then it doesn’t seem like things have changed much.
When actual cases hit the justice system it’s still the case that the standard of evidence for criminal negligence is high. And that might be… good, actually. But echoing Forrest’s comment above… it’s disappointing that, in a state with a VUL, in a city that talks about Vision Zero, we’re doing such shoddy investigations of the crashes that kill people on our streets. The spirit of VZ is that when someone dies in a crash we say, “This should not have happened,” ask, “What could we have done to prevent it?” and commit to doing those things. I’m not seeing that from the city.
If this driver had hit and killed a Seattle Police Officer on a bike, motorcycle, or car under the same circumstances, does anyone think this guy would not be behind bars? A Washington State Trooper was just tragically killed by a driver who had a suspended license, and previous DUI’s, blood tested below the legal limit but deemed “impaired” and has been charged with Vehicular Homicide. Yet the individual who killed Steven Hulsman gets a traffic ticket. Who does this guy know, or is Seattle PD and City Prosecutors just simply incompetent?
Terry hits the point right on the nose. Why are there different standards for prosecution when the the cause (gross vehicular negligence) and results (death) are the same?
I suspect too, that the crime scene was not cordoned off and examined carefully because unfortunately, it only takes a fraction of the violence of a negligent motorist to kill a vulnerable user than it does with motor vehicle vs motor vehicle. I am betting that the scene of the accident and the resulting lack of “car-nage” biases SPD against putting in the time and investigative work for vehicle vs vulnerable user accidents in the same way a gory result of machine vs machine does. :(
Ah, more proof that SPD cares more about literally anything else than the actual lives of the citizens living in the city it is sworn to protect. But hey let’s just keep throwing more money at hiring cops who don’t actually do their jobs.
And no, it’s not the fault of all the “Progressives” it’s the fault of a system where cops can basically do whatever they do or don’t want to do and there are zero consequences to them not doing their actual jobs… kind of like a certain political party out there and a group of “moderates” who only care for protecting their own property and interests.