Rocky Hillside

Yesterday morning, a driver, who crossed the center line, killed two cyclists. Kristy Gough, 30, and Matt Peterson, 29, are both dead. A third cyclist is in critical condition.

The police continue to suppress the name of the killer (because the killer is a deputy sheriff?), and there's no indication the killer is in custody.

Typical. Killing people with your car is somehow okay no matter how reckless or negligent.

From the AP:

Two bicyclists are dead and a third was seriously injured after authorities say a sheriff's deputy plowed into the riders while on patrol in Cupertino.

Santa Clara County Sheriff's Sgt. Don Morrissey said the deputy accidentally crossed over the center line at around 10:25 a.m. Sunday and struck the three cyclists, who were riding in the other way.

"Accidentally" crossed the center line? In the sense of "not intentionally" maybe, but killing people while not paying attention is not "accidental."

And this killing is certainly no "accident." An image that appears to be of the scene, shows what a cyclist describes as a bike lane and what appears to be the killer's SUV. The killer wasn't just over the center line. His entire SUV was in the wrong lane and part of the SUV is in the oncoming bike lane. (More pictures here.)

UPDATE: Drivers don't kill people. People get in the way of cars. People are killed when they run into cars. And, cars (but not drivers) kill people.

Typical reporting from Leslie Griffy at the Mercury News:

The group [of cyclists] collided with the deputy's car while the deputy was on a routine patrol in the area, Sgt. Don Morrissey said.

Would a high school English teacher accept this description of what happened? The cyclists, the group acted upon, should be the object of the sentence, not the subject. The actor, the one doing the killing, should be the subject.

I understand that there are reasons to deviate from straightforward sentence structure. But, what's the reason here? Are the cyclists the actors? They rode into the car and killed themselves? That's the impression a quick read leaves.

Moreover, according to the sentence, the deputy "was on a routine patrol," not driving, while the "deputy's car" was in the path of the cyclists. Good deputy; bad car.

Her lede is worse. Again, it's a (driverless?) car that killed these two people not a driver:

Two bicyclists were killed when a Santa Clara County sheriff's patrol car crossed the double-yellow line on Stevens Canyon Road in Cupertino and hit a group of riders shortly before 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

The headline?

Sheriff's patrol car hits bicyclists, kills 2

Nitpicking? Maybe. But I think Ms. Griffy has phrased the sentence as she did because she could not write "A deputy sheriff killed two cyclists."

Culturally, we - reporters included - cannot accept that drivers are usually at fault when they kill people. Phrasing it as Ms. Griffy did helps disguise the culpable party - the driver - and his culpability.

This part of our culture has got to change.