A couple questions of legalities

[GT40FIED]

Alright...so I just got back into town (at school) yesterday. A few blocks from my house I was looking forward to getting home after an unusually long drive (a head on accident shut down the highway and forced me to take a shitload of backroads to get around it). I was driving down a 4 lane street (2 lanes either way) when I look ahead and see some asshole riding his bicycle towards me in my lane...against traffic and in the middle of a lane. Now...generally I hate it when people ride bikes in the street unless there's no sidewalk...but blatantly disobeying traffic laws is something different altogether. So my question is if I would have hit him, am I criminally at fault? Since people on bicycles are supposed to follow the same rules of the road as cars, I figure hitting him would have been kosher. I mean...if a car had been driving directly at me going the wrong way and it hit me, there's no way I'd be at fault. I contemplated hitting him purely out of spite, but instead I got a few hunder yards from him and gunned the engine until I was about 75 feet away and changed lanes. I know...I'm an asshole...but I figure he had it coming.

Secondly I was curious about justifiable homicide (self defense in particular). Say I find out someone is coming to kill me and I have time to get ready. If I lay in wait with a weapon and kill this person before they have a chance to kill me, is it still self defense or is it premeditated? I mean...premeditation involves thought and planning...something I would certainly have to do to defend myself. Plus if I'm holding a gun and so is the other person it stands to reason that we're equally dangerous to each other. So...thoughts?

[Wren57]

1) You would be at fault. You are always at fault if there is reasonable doubt that you could have avoided the accident.

2) You should use police and other means to thwart an attack on you if there is sufficient time to do so. Capture by authorities and evasion supercede ambush as acceptable means of ensuring your personal safety, but are not legally stated. It would depend on the judge's interpretation of the law.

[IALuder]

actually steve your wrong in many ways. you are suspossed to walk and ride your bike going towards traffic.

[JDMFantasy2k]

Originally Posted by IALuder

actually steve your wrong in many ways. you are suspossed to walk and ride your bike going towards traffic.

wrong

you walk against traffic, you ride with traffic.


[quote=Wren57]1) You would be at fault. You are always at fault if there is reasonable doubt that you could have avoided the accident.

2) You should use police and other means to thwart an attack on you if there is sufficient time to do so. Capture by authorities and evasion supercede ambush as acceptable means of ensuring your personal safety, but are not legally stated. It would depend on the judge's interpretation of the law.QUOTE]

yeah that sounds pretty good. The second thing i think would only pass if you went to the authorities and there was nothing they could do. It also depends on how "premeditated" you are. But yeah i'm sure if you didn't involve the cops and took it into your own hands and premedidated a plot to kill someone before they off'd you, then yeah you'd probably be screwed. The definition of self defense is usually defending oneself while (or right before) being attacked. So an elaborate plan kind of rules that out.