Somber but fascinating article

I just read a fascinating article about “How do you live after unintentionally causing a death?”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-sorrow-and-the-shame-of-the-accidental-killer

I found this interesting just because I don’t know anything about this topic, and you never hear about it. Yet I know of two separate incidents where a close friend or family member could have killed someone in a car accident. One hit a bicyclist, the other T-boned a car and put one of the occupants into critical condition.  He was actually temporarily arrested until they determined whether the person he hit was going to live or not. In both these instances, the drivers were young, neither one driving under the influence, or texting, or doing anything reckless. Just momentary inattention, or inexperience, or momentary poor visibility, or simply bad luck.  These drivers did nothing wrong. Or did they? They hit someone.

An interesting question:  How much do actions vs. outcome matter in culpability? Are these two young people more innocent or more moral because the people they hit didn’t die? What if they had died? Are you or I more innocent or more moral just because all the mistakes we’ve ever made behind the wheel didn’t cause a death? And we could have. We all could have.

On a lighter note, come to think of it, John about backed the car into me just the other day. (I believe that to be unintentional, but we never know, do we?) OK, joking. But seriously, John’s one of the best drivers I’ve ever met. But these things happen. Good people make mistakes. It wouldn’t have killed me, but what if I had been a child? Or what if…?

“There are no self-help books for those who have unintentionally killed someone”