This is an amazingly sad story.

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Pablo

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One thing continues to trouble her, she said, is why she and other witnesses were forced to remain at the scene for hours, until 5:30 a.m., as police conducted their investigation, while the driver of the vehicle and her husband were allowed to go home.
That's just messed up.
 

Allen_Wrench

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Feb 6, 2010
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Quote: "Now the driver of the SUV, Sharlene Simon, 42, a mother of three, formerly from Innisfil, is suing the dead boy for the emotional trauma she says she has suffered. She’s also suing the two other boys, as well as the dead boy’s parents, and even his brother, who has since died. She’s also suing the County of Simcoe for failing to maintain the road."

It seems to me that the parents could make an even more compelling argument for emotional trauma, and I hope they consider a counter suit. I think most sane individuals would agree that these parents have more grounds in that regard than the driver does. I know nothing of the size of the driver's brain, but it sounds like she has huge rocks for a female.
 

fasteddy

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Feb 13, 2009
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I'm thinking that with her admitting that she was speeding she'll have a hard time getting out of the parents lawsuit. While the kids shouldn't have been in the middle of the road, according to the law she should have been driving with due diligence and care.

Starting a lawsuit of her own will now have a lot of people looking really closely to see just what part her husband played in all this.

To me the unbelievable part is that her lawsuit says the kids were at fault because they "Didn't apply their brakes properly so they were incompetent bicyclists". When and where should the brakes been applied by the bicyclists?
She rear ended them so applying their brakes wouldn't have helped.

The only brakes that needed applying were on her car and she didn't apply them. I'd love to be on the jury hearing this case. They may have one heck of a time finding an impartial jury.

Steve.
 

CTripps

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Aug 22, 2011
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I, personally, am beyond disgusted with this "person" which is why I haven't posted until now.. I read about this on the 25th and every time I try to post it turns into a rant not fit for polite company. Or you folks here, for that matter. ;)

If I still lived in the region I'd be organising a M.A.B. mob to be ready to ride 'escort' whenever this "person" walked out of the house with her keys in hand.

On a side note.... I wonder what it'd be like to have a half dozen MABs sitting at the end of your driveway idling/revving, ready to go....
 

velzie

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What many of you fail to understand is that is was an accident brought about by the negligence of the bicyclists (no helmets, no lights and riding side-by-side). At the moment there is no evidence to the contrary, only speculation. A rode-side sobriety test was administered and she was allowed to go.

The woman is not at fault for hitting what she couldn't see on a dark rainy night. It must be very difficult to live with the fact that you are responsible for killing someone by accident.

The lawsuit is a counter-suit as she is being sued. This type of counter-suit is common in cases like these and does not make her evil. It is not meant to gain anything from the family of the deceased, but to negate the costs that she is being sued for by the family.

The loss of life is very sad, but looking for a scapegoat does not solve anything.
 

biknut

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What many of you fail to understand is that is was an accident brought about by the negligence of the bicyclists (no helmets, no lights and riding side-by-side). At the moment there is no evidence to the contrary, only speculation. A rode-side sobriety test was administered and she was allowed to go.
The woman is not at fault for hitting what she couldn't see on a dark rainy night. It must be very difficult to live with the fact that you are responsible for killing someone by accident.

The lawsuit is a counter-suit as she is being sued. This type of counter-suit is common in cases like these and does not make her evil. It is not meant to gain anything from the family of the deceased, but to negate the costs that she is being sued for by the family.

The loss of life is very sad, but looking for a scapegoat does not solve anything.
According to what I read, I thought it said the police didn't do a sobriety test. Why? Seems like that would have made all the difference in the world, and if she passed the test would have gone a long way to protect her. OTOH failing such a test would have put her in deep doo doo. It seems like the police did a very poor job, starting with the lady's husband.
 

biknut

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Then read more.
"A roadside screening device was administered “out of an abundance for caution,” the report said, and registered “zero alcohol content in her blood system.”
I guess different reports make different claims. The one I first posted said,

"The report also states: “No breathalyzer was performed. Although police say no alcohol was suspected and no charges were laid."
 

fasteddy

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Velzie,

I'll have to disagree with you that counter suing a family who's child you have just killed is common. It seems that it is unheard of as a matter of fact around the world. I'm a self confessed news junkie. I spend a large part of my day visiting different English language news sites and this story has gone around the world and judging by the sites that allow comments this woman's suing of the parents and even the dead brother of the boy she killed has never been heard of anywhere in the world and left people with a very creepy feeling about what her motive is.

Now I don't understand why you keep saying that because the kids didn't have helmets and lights they are at fault. A bicycle helmet wouldn't be of much use when your hit from behind at 90km or 55.8mph and lights are not required on a bicycle and it seems that they had reflectors on their bikes as is required.
Riding three abreast definitely caused the problem since the one who was killed was most likely on the inside and the one injured was in the middle and the one that was less badly injured was on the outside and was brushed by the vehicle.

This does not in any way excuse the fact that she was speeding an a dark, rain swept road. She is in fact responsible for hitting these boys on a dark, rainy, night. The car wasn't responsible for sure. She didn't exercise due diligence and care no matter how you try to spin it. If she had her vehicles headlights on high beam as she should have she most certainly should have seen the reflectors on at least one of the bikes.

I base this on my 52 years of driving and in that time I have driven dark, rainy, roads many times and have had bikes suddenly appear out of the dark riding three abreast and have never hit them. It may have been luck on my part and probably was but I did have control my vehicle and avoided trouble.

Now it's my turn to play Devils advocate.

You pop up on this site out of nowhere and start putting a spin on this story that absolves this woman of any blame. You have a hand full of posts on here and all about this story. Are you on here with a different name that you are trying to keep clean?
Do you even own a motorized bike or did it occur to you to start looking for motorized bicycle web sites to see if this story came up somewhere about your friend? Your awfully well informed about this story. More so than most casual observers would normally be and you certainly seem to have a more than casual interest in getting the word out as you want it to be.

Many, if not all, the people replying to your post have either been hit and severely injured by drivers who weren't paying attention or have been able to escape with very close calls. You are most certainly welcome to post on here I'm sure and try and spin this to who ever you think will listen but I'm afraid that your going to find that this audience is mighty hard of hearing when it comes to your message.

Steve.
 

biknut

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Sep 28, 2010
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So the woman suing the dead boy's family.......her husband is a cop? Did I read that correctly?
Yes, apparently he's a cop on the same force that investigated the accident. He was following his wife in his own car, and after the accident he got out, walked up, and looked at the injured child, then went back to his car, and drove off, without rendering any aid, according to a witness.
 

CTripps

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Aug 22, 2011
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I'm pretty sure the husband/officer is a member of a different police force.. In Canada, we have a sometimes complicated system, but I'm sure parralels can be drawn to other countries..

We have the RCMP, or Royal Canadian Mounted Police.. they are federal, juridiction is (technically) every square inch of the country.. (contrary to popular image, only a small number wear the red serge uniform and perform in the musical ride your mind's eye is probably showing you).

Then we have provincial police, in this case the Ontario Provincial Police, or OPP.. thier juridiction is limited to the province itself. They are often the police of smaller towns and "the spaces in between".. Some provinces and territories may not have thier own police, and rely on the RCMP to fill the void.

There are regional forces, like the York Regional force that the husband is/was employed by, responsible for the city/township/county they're named for (York, a suburb of Toronto, in this case)..

Then we have 'local' police, like the Toronto (or Ottawa, or London, or Windsor, etc) Police dept.

The standard proceedure when an officer is being investigated is to bring in someone from another force to do it.

Odds are that when the officer arrived on scene he had no idea who the involved driver's husband was, and if he had any association with him he would have been required to hand the case over to another officer or agency for investigation due to (potential) conflict of interest.

Hope that clears a little confusion.
 

fasteddy

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Think of the R.C.M.P. as if the F.B.I. were in police cars patrolling the parts of the U.S. that don't have a police department. They work at the same level as the F.B.I. do in supplying national and international police duties and investigations as well as national security. Different provinces hire them from the federal government to provide police duties.
The red serge uniforms are their class A's

I liken this woman's lawsuit to being like a murderer suing their victims family because the victim died and now the murder is in court facing a life sentence or worse and it's all the murder victims fault because they died.
The odd thing is there are the same questions being asked on the other site and someone is saying the same things that Velzie is here. Always someone to defend the people who can't be defended.

The one thing that they seem to fail to realize is that we all are going to have an accident as we ride our bikes. Every time they get on their bikes they are one ride closer to that accident. To find fault with someone who got on their bike for the last time and died seems to me to be ridiculous. I'd hope that if they are run down by a car or truck driver that no one in the rest of the motor bike riding community rushes out to defend the driver and blame them for not riding their motor bike properly with the correct gear but it would indeed be karma finding it's way home.

My question would be to this woman, Just how do you know you were doing 90km an hour when you hit them? Did you look at your speedometer just as you saw them in front of you?
It will be interesting to see just how it all unfolds as both lawsuits get to court. Nothing like living in a small town and turning the people around you against yourself when you desperately need them on your side. No one likes a child killer even if it was an accident.

I certainly agree with Robin and CTripps that if this was in B.C. we should be in the court as a show of condolence to the fallen member of our small community. Maybe the riders in the Toronto area will do something.

As for her husband being a police officer and another police department investigating. I'll reserve comment only because I was married to a police officer and am privy to how the police departments and the thin blue line work.

Steve.
 
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Allen_Wrench

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I, for one, was broadsided in broad daylight, while I had right-of-way, while I had headlights and taillights on, and was slammed hard enough to be sent tumbling down the street. My helmet seemed to have saved my head but the rest of me needed hospitalization for weeks. I have a rod, a plate, and pins in my leg. I had numerous other fractures and dislocations. But still, I have not entirely lost my objectivity.
The bikers, if we can believe the media, were merely guilty of not riding as though they were invisible, something that many of us preach on this forum. Whether having helmets would have saved any of them is in doubt. The driver seems to be guilty of driving too fast for conditions. Heavy rain, blinding snow, fog, or anything that impairs vision of the road ahead or traction thereon seldom gets taken seriously enough. There are plenty of people just here in Indy who'd be alive today if some of our drivers had just slowed down.
But I am having trouble trusting the media. Conflicting reports keep turning up. There will always be the victims side of the story, the perpetrator's side, and the end result. The end result is usually something preventable, and if you dig deep enough you can often find that both the perpetrator and the victim could have done something to prevent it.