Man Saves 3 Lives; Gets Jaywalking Ticket

[Mrcloudz]

Injured good Samaritan gets jaywalking ticket for his trouble : Local News : The Rocky Mountain News

He may have saved three lives, but RTD bus driver Jim Moffett got a jaywalking ticket anyway, along with broken bones.

Moffett, 58, was driving an RTD bus south on Federal Boulevard at 62nd Avenue at 9 p.m. Friday, the State Patrol said.

Two elderly women exited the bus and tried to walk across Federal to their trailer home on the east side, Moffett's stepson Ken McDonald said Tuesday.

"With that light snowstorm, my stepdad didn't think they could cross the street safely," McDonald said. "So he got off the bus with another passenger, and they helped the ladies cross."

The four people had made it about halfway across Federal, and most of the northbound traffic had slowed to let them go the rest of the way, McDonald said.

"But one pickup driver got impatient and passed in the left- hand turn lane," McDonald said. "He plowed right into my stepdad - but not before (my stepdad) pushed the old ladies and the other guy out of the way."

Moffett is at St. Anthony Central Medical Center with bleeding in the brain, broken bones in his face, a dislocated shoulder, a broken wrist and possible ruptured spleen and liver.

Eddie Moore, the passenger who helped Moffett assist the women, also was cited for jaywalking. The pickup driver, Steven C. David, was cited for careless driving causing injury.

The jaywalking citation should be dismissed and crosswalks should be installed, McDonald said. Ryan Sullivan, of the State Patrol, said that while Moffett's "intentions were good," jaywalking caused the accident.

Poor guy I hope he gets better soon

[Mizango]

Dude I just read that story, that's really fucked up lol. I hope the guy recovers and get this ticket tossed.

[Jaybar]

If he goes to, I assume, traffic court, the judge will probably just remove it off the record with a warning.

[GeneJackit]

I work as a claims adjuster dealing with auto accidents like this, and I think you could find the ped PARTIALLY at fault for the accident for jaywalking and in some bad weather too...obviously, the driver of the vehicle is going to have the vast majority of fault in this case, but working as an adjuster for 3 years you learn to make evaluations on these sort of things that may seem obvious but arent...

side note...i dont handle claims in CO, so I am not sure how they assess fault for auto accidents

[Khamsin]

Well, I do see the officer's point. They shouldn't have been crossing there in the first place. The driver shouldn't have helped the ladies cross at that location, he should have led them to a safer (perhaps marked) place to cross, or at least told them to get back on the bus so he could take them to a crosswalk.

Why should somebody get a medal for helping old ladies cross an unsafe, busy street in inclement weather, no less, at an inapppropriate crossing point? Pushing them out of the way of the truck was a noble gesture, but they shouldn't have been in that position to begin with. For clarification, this was a boulevard, meaning it was a multilane divided highway, typically two lanes in each direction with a median and possibly bike lanes, but the exact cross section varies from city to city. And since the truck was in the left turn lane, this means the road was even wider at this point. Multiple lanes in each direction and additional turn lanes. This is far from crossing a simple side street with one lane in each direction.

You can't toss somebody into the river, then help them out and expect to be praised.