[akgerber]

Blame and jail time are essentially never applied, even in egregious cases, at least in New York City. Families have to fight for DAs to charge even unlicensed drivers that end up on the sidewalk: http://abc7ny.com/news/exclusive-family-outraged-after-drive...

Beyond that, a lifetime driving ban is nearly impossible to impose in this country even though it would be an appropriate punishment for repeat dangerous drivers. Driving, despite being a privilege, is often treated as a right. A man who ran down and killed a little girl holding hands with her grandma in the crosswalk with the light (the police initially blamed the child on the word of the driver, and the DA dismissed the crash as an 'accident') only ended up with a driving ban due to a civil suit: http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/10/29/civil-suit-compels-man...

We clearly shouldn't blame, and especially shouldn't jail, people for every crash— but the current driving and policing culture in this country is profoundly far from that standard. Redesigning roadways so safe behavior is the default is a far better first step, but an abusive driver can figure out ways to make the best-designed piece of infrastructure dangerous.