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AusTexMurf

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From: South Austin

Registered: 2008-11-21

Posts: 439

Austin driver fled after hitting teen on bike

Police: Austin driver fled after hitting teen on bike

By Ciara O'Rourke
American-Statesman Staff
Police have arrested an Austin man accused of hitting a 14-year-old boy with his truck and then leaving the scene on Tuesday, according to an arrest affidavit.
Dustin Nolan Hyde, 24, was charged with an accident involving personal injury or death, a third-degree felony, according to the affidavit. His bail was set at $10,000 but jail records show he was no longer in custody Thursday morning…
...He also told police that he didn’t stop because he had to pay rent and make it to a “DWI class” on time, the affidavit says…

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MichaelBluejay

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From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,455

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Re: Austin driver fled after hitting teen on bike

One of the comments at the end of the article was priceless:

"Dustin Nolan Hyde, 24, was charged with an accident involving personal injury or death, a third-degree felony"

A quick note, failing to pay your toll on a Texas toll road is also a 3rd degree felony. Naturally in Texas not paying a $1.50 toll is equivalent to hitting a child with your car and leaving him to die, or whatever.

Until Texans learn to value life even half as much as they value property they will always have cultural problems like this.

BINGO!

dougmc

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Registered: 2008-06-01

Posts: 623

Re: Austin driver fled after hitting teen on bike

failing to pay your toll on a Texas toll road is also a 3rd degree felony

[Citation needed]

If the registered owner fails to pay the third notice on time, the driver may be charged with failure to pay tolls, a misdemeanor.

This first account (totaling $44,627.70) led to class C misdemeanor charges of Failure or Refusal to Pay Toll.

TxTag Problems and Toll Road Violations.  Section 228.054 of the Texas Transportation Code makes it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $250 to fail or refuse to pay a toll at a toll collection facility on a toll road in Texas. After they make an attempt to collect the fees owed by the vehicle owners, the toll road operators in Central Texas will eventually file class C misdemeanor criminal charges in Justice of the Peace Courts in Williamson and Travis Counties for toll road payment violations.

I think I'm going to have to file this "third degree felony" business into the BS file.  Perhaps there are some circumstances where you could make it into a felony, such as using forged passes or something (i.e. fraud), but run of the mill failure to pay your toll seems to be a class C misdemeanor, even for dollar amounts in the tens of thousands.

And even if it was a 3rd degree felony, just because we can find two crimes that are the same class of crime, that doesn't make them equivalent.  For example, "obstructing a highway" and "driving while intoxicated" are both class B misdemeanors in Texas, but guess which one has more serious penalties and affects you more down the road?

And yes, I do realize that it was Mikedb1 who made these claims, not you.

MichaelBluejay

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From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,455

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Re: Austin driver fled after hitting teen on bike

Okay, good detective work (as usual).  I stand corrected.

But the point remains: Whatever laws are actually on the books, they're often not enforced very much against at-fault motorists who kill and injure others.  The driver who ran a red light and killed Ben Clough paid no fine, served no jail time, and didn't even get a ticket for running the red light.  In another recent case, a drunk driver who killed four people got zero jail time.  The list goes on and on.  It does indeed seem like we, as a society, are too willing to view traffic deaths as merely unfortunate collateral damage, even when the driver was unmistakably at-fault.  That's a cultural problem, for sure.

MichaelBluejay

Webmaster

From: Austin, TX

Registered: 2008-05-26

Posts: 1,455

Website

Re: Austin driver fled after hitting teen on bike

Dustin Nolan Hyde scheduled for court on April 18th 5/23 6/30.

Update, 2/13/15:  I can't easily keep up with these cases because felony outcomes are not searchable online, and misdemeanor outcomes aren't clear.  (I also can't just call; felony outcomes are available over the phone only to attorneys.)  So, even though I wasn't very active in trying to follow up on cases, I guess I'll be even less active now.

Right now, only a DWI by Mr. Hyde in 6/2013 is listed on the docket.  I don't know what happened to his felony for hitting the teen.