Driver falls asleep, narrowly misses bike rider, captured on video. Was this reckless driving?

Following an investigation, the Iowa State Patrol has charged a driver with failure to maintain control after his truck crossed an oncoming traffic lane and narrowly missed a bicyclist riding in the opposite direction. The truck landed in the ditch.

The bicyclist had a rear-facing camera mounted to the seat of his bike which captured footage of a vehicle traveling within inches of the person riding the bike. There is no doubt, the bike rider is lucky to be alive.

It is difficult to not jump to conclusions about the intentions of the driver considering the large number of bicyclists who have been run over by drivers in the past decade. However, there is only a handful of video frames that show the vehicle. You cannot see the driver due the reflection in the glass.

It is difficult to imagine that someone would be so angry at a random person on a bike that they would drive across the road to scare them and then put their own vehicle into the ditch.

It is difficult to believe that person bent on intimidation would wreck their car and be able to hold their alibi about falling asleep without accidentally revealing a more sinister intent.

From the public’s perspective, we don’t have any more evidence that would suggest a different conclusion that what the Iowa State Patrol crash investigation revealed — that a person fell asleep at the wheel, missed hitting a person on a bike, and lost control of his vehicle. This, is an accident, right?

Wait just a minute. Drowsy driving can be just as dangerous as drunk driving or distracted driving. The website www.drowsydriving.org says:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are the direct result of driver fatigue each year. This results in an estimated 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses.

Our society leans towards forgiveness with motor vehicle crashes. We self-identify as drivers and think it could happen to us too. Using the word accident instead of crash tends to make the incident an act created by a higher power or random circumstance. A crash or collision has a set of contributing factors that can be identified as causes of the incident.

But without injury, this crash is charged as failure to maintain control.

A driver that was this drowsy should have never been behind the wheel. Any reasonable person would conclude that more likely than not harm will come from driving while asleep. This should meet the legal definition of reckless. If the bicycle rider wasn’t so lucky, this could have been a death or serious injury by reckless driving.

State v. Cox, 500 N.W.2d 23, 26 (Iowa 1993). In Cox, this court made plain that, even when a death occurs, violation of a rule of the road, by itself, does not elevate “a simple misdemeanor to a class ‘C’ felony.” Id. Thus proof that a motorist failed to yield at a stop sign, without accompanying evidence of speeding or erratic driving, was insufficient as a matter of law to establish the recklessness necessary to support a conviction for vehicular homicide. Id. Relying on Cox, the court held in State v. Klatt, 544 N.W.2d 461, 463 (Iowa Ct.App.1995), that proof of improper passing, without more, could not sustain a vehicular homicide conviction. Klatt involved a motorist who was attempting to pass two semi-trailer trucks when he collided with an oncoming vehicle, killing the driver. Although the maneuver occurred in a no-passing zone, the court held that absent proof of excessive speed or other conscious disregard for the safety of others, the State failed in its burden of proving recklessness. Klatt, 544 N.W.2d at 463.

Is falling asleep at the wheel reckless? Thankfully, no one was severely injured and we don’t need to argue this in a court of law. But, we still need to learn from this crash, so in the future, drowsy drivers know it is dangerous to operate a moving vehicle.