There's one situation where drivers don't face penalties if they hit and injure/kill a pedestrian: if that pedestrian caused the accident and the driver had no way of preventing it.

For example, if a pedestrian assumes there is no traffic and steps into the road without looking, just feet from an oncoming-but-silent car.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/opinion/why-drivers-get-aw...

"Here are a few common scenarios under which a pedestrian may be found at least partially at fault for an accident involving a vehicle:

* jaywalking, or crossing in the middle of the street, outside of a crosswalk

* crossing against the traffic signal (i.e. in the crosswalk but against a red "Do Not Walk" command)

* entering a street or highway while intoxicated, and

* walking along highways, bridges, or causeways where pedestrian access is prohibited."

http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/auto-accident/pedestrian...

You know those tire commercials where a kid goes running out into traffic between cars in a residential neighborhood and the driver is happy they had Michelin tires because they were able to stop in time? Imagine the kid ran out half a second later. Should the driver be charged?

Again, I'm not sure what's unbelievable about anything I said.

I know people can run in to the street without warning. I know drivers get away with no punishment if somebody darts in to the street.

In fact, my point was that drivers get away with no punishment _almost every time they kill a pedestrian_. In NYC they have less than a 5% chance of even being arrested, much less convicted. Driving a car is probably a great way to commit murder.

Also, yes, I think the driver should be charged for driving so fast in a residential neighborhood that they can't stop in time to prevent killing a kid. If I recklessly [flew my helicopter/drove my tank/rammed my hovercraft/ran my bobsled] in to a child it would be met with outrage, so why do we apply different rules to automobiles? (Spoiler - because automobiles are convenient and while we claim otherwise, we just don't care enough about dead kids to change culture).

http://freakonomics.com/2014/05/01/the-perfect-crime-a-new-f...

But apparently you believe there is such a thing as a speed so low that you cannot hit a pedestrian. Have you ever watched some Russian dashboard camera footage where pedestrians throw themselves at cars that are sometimes completely stopped? Or my previous example of someone walking into the side of your car? I've had that happen, where a bicyclist ran through an intersection without looking and ended up in the back of my pickup truck. Tell me that's my fault. The responding officer sure didn't.

    "There's one situation where drivers don't face penalties if they hit and injure/kill a pedestrian: if that pedestrian caused the accident and the driver had no way of preventing it."

If a person leaps in front of a big rig in order to kill themselves, then no, the driver is not responsible. If a kid runs after a soccer ball in the street and gets run over because they driver didn't stop in time, then the driver was probably going too fast for the circumstances.

Mind you, I like cars. I may walk to work but I drive very quickly on the autobahn a few times a year and it's a blast. Limited access roadways with _incredibly_ good visibility and road conditions are great places to go fast. Cities and towns with cars, bikes, walkers, and anything else you can imagine all using the same street space are great places to go slow.

So allow me to clarify my original post: There's at least one situation where drivers don't face penalties.

And then let me word it a little more strongly: There's only one situation where drivers, under the law, don't face penalties: when the driver was not at fault. Because the situations you listed are those where the driver legally could have faced penalties but did not.