Thursday, July 24, 2008

Robert Novak, Lying Douchebag

Conservative columnist Robert Novak struck a 66 year old pedestrian in a crosswalk with his Corvette on a Washington, DC street yesterday and apparently never even noticed, despite an eyewitness testifying to the police that he saw the senior citizen rolling across Novak's windshield before he took a turn onto a side street:

Interestingly, we have this blurb from a 2001 Washington Post interview with Novak:

Since the fellow he hit was legally in a crosswalk, we're now left with but two options: 1) Novak hit this guy and knowingly fled the scene, yet was only charged with a $50 failure to yield citation and not a charged with leaving the scene of an accident nor given a field sobriety test, or 2) the 77 year old Novak hit another senior citizen with his car, rolling him across his windshield, and again never even noticed. Which leads me to two possible conclusions: 1) Novak is a lying douchebag or 2) Novak is too old to be allowed to drive the streets of Washington, DC.

Now while I'm very open to the possibility of Novak being a lying douchebag (in fact I'm fairly certain of it; see: Novak outs an undercover CIA agent), I've always been a staunch advocate of increased regularity of driving and eye tests for senior citizen drivers. My plan is that starting at age 70, seniors should be required to come into the Dept. of Motor Vehicles every two years for an eye test and a short, fundamental driving test. This should be repeated every two years until they turn 85, when it should switch to every year.

Now I know some people will say, "Hey James, you're unfairly prosecuting all seniors for the actions of a few"; but when your reaction time has been considerably shortened, you senses are dulled and your mental faculties are breaking down, I believe society should step in and manage the problem effectively. And let's face it: what the hell else do these people have to do with their time? At least at the DMV they'll have somebody to talk to.

South Park, of course, is way ahead of the curve on this issue:


Intrepid Californio said...

I guess it's OK to run people over in the cross walk. This guy is an asshole. He should be charged with at the very least criminal negligence, and he should have his license revoked. In California if you get 4 points in 12 months, they suspend your license. In DC if you run someone over, you are off the hook. apparently.

Anonymous said...

The facts of this story seem to very weird. I couldn't find an article about it, so I had to rely upon Wikipedia. The pedestrian "was sprawled across the windshield" but was only found to have "minor injuries". I'm assuming he was not given a more extreme punishment than "failing to yield the right of way" because, perhaps, he was at a stop light that turned green while the pedestrian was still in the crosswalk, so Novak - seemingly known to hate jaywalkers - decided to make the guy pay for it and hit him at low speed. However, if this is the case then I don't know why he would have stopped his car for the law firm cyclist a block away. Why not go 2 for 2?

Weird story, man. I think it's safe to say he didn't get hit with a bigger penalty, though, because he probably didn't nail the guy at high speed.

Of course, I hit that 4th grader at somewhere between 30-40mph and she came out just fine... so I might be totally wrong.