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news
Charity cyclists killed in collision with drug driver (Make-A-Wish Michigan)Drug driver who killed two charity cyclists jailed for 70 years – despite insisting head-on crash was “a horrific accident”
A motorist who crashed into a group of cyclists taking part in a charity ride, killing two and seriously injuring two others, while under the influence of several drugs, has been sentenced to at least 70 years in prison.
In a groundbreaking ruling, a judge in Ionia County, Michigan, handed Mandy Benn two consecutive sentences of 35 to 60 years – which means that the 44-year-old will spend the rest of her life in prison – after being found guilty of second-degree murder and 11 other charges following the deaths in July 2022 of charity cyclists Edward Erickson and Michael Selhaney, the Royal Oak Tribune reports.
Erickson and Salhaney were part of a group of five cyclists taking part in the 35th edition of the Make-A-Wish Bicycle Tour, a three-day ride taking in much of the state of Michigan to raise funds for a charity that aims to fulfil the wishes of critically ill children.
On Saturday 30 July, the riders were heading southbound through Ronald Township, a small town around 100 miles northwest of Detroit, when they were hit head-on by SUV driver Benn, who was trying to overtake a United Parcel Service vehicle.
57-year-old father-of-seven Salhaney, a former Oakland County assistant prosecutor, and 48-year-old father-of-two Erickson died due to injuries sustained in the crash. Another two members of the group suffered broken bones and other serious injuries, from which they are still recovering.
In the days following the crash, Ionia County District Attorney Kyle Butler said there was no indication that the motorist had attempted to brake or slow down before striking the cyclists.
Benn admitted to police at the scene that she had used Adderall and Suboxone before the crash, while police found a bottle containing another prescription drug in her car. She then tested positive for several controlled substances, including benzodiazepine and hydrocodone.
It was also reported at the time that the motorist – whose speech was slurred, as she struggled to balance and appeared unable to follow instructions – did not appear to understand the extent of what had happened in conversations with police officers, allegedly telling them that the scene of the crash “almost looks real”.
The District Attorney also told the judge that Benn had a history of abusing medication and in 2017 had reacted in a similar manner after being arrested for driving while visibly impaired.
“Show a shred of remorse, just a shred”
In a statement read to the court, Michael Salhaney’s sons spoke of the “indescribable amount of pain and unbelievable suffering” that had followed their father’s “senseless, violent, and devastating murder”.
“Your actions have caused more than just physical wounds,” Mitchell Salhaney told Benn. “My brothers and I have to live with this for the rest of our lives. Every holiday, every birthday, every moment wishing we could just talk and hug our father again.
“You took away two of the most genuine souls in Michigan. Ed was a fantastic human being, and what more is there to say about two men who were granting wishes to children with life-threatening and terminal illnesses? Mandy Benn, may you rot in hell.”
> Pick-up truck driver crashes into group of cyclists, leaving two dead and 11 injured
Salhaney’s family also told the court that Benn had never expressed remorse for her actions during the court proceedings, a development prosecutor Butler described as “truly baffling”.
“Gosh, show a shred of remorse, just a shred,” Butler said prior to sentencing.
Before being sentenced to at least 70 years in prison, Benn did eventually apologise to the victims’ families – while maintaining that the fatal collision was a “horrific accident”.
“I know you haven’t seen much of it, but I am very much so sorry. I never in my life had any intent of hurting anyone,” she said.
“One moment, that moment changed the outcome of a lot of futures. One moment, that no matter how much I want to change, I can’t.
“I hope nobody has to experience what I thought was impossible. This was a horrific accident, and for that I am truly sorry. From the bottom of my heart I am very sorry to everyone connected. I hope every single person is able to find peace and eventually heal.”
> Drugged driver who killed five cyclists in Michigan jailed for at least 40 years
Admonishing Benn for her use of the term “accident” to describe the crash, Judge Ronald Schafer said: “This is not an accident. What you did was clearly not an accident.
“There was a series of intentional decisions you made to ingest this cocktail of narcotics and that led to everything we saw. I hope with time that you’re able to recognise that.”
Schafer sentenced Benn to two consecutive sentences of 35 to 60 years for the murder convictions (most sentences in Michigan run concurrently), while also sentencing her to concurrent shorter sentences for 11 other charges and ordering her to pay as yet to be determined medical costs to the surviving cyclists.
Benn’s sentencing comes five years after another drug-using motorist from Michigan was jailed for a minimum of 40 years after killing five cyclists and seriously injuring four others when he ploughed into a group ride near Kalamazoo.
The cyclists, a group of friends who called themselves ‘The Chain Gang’ were out on their weekly ride when Charles Pickett Junior, aged 52, crashed into them in his pick-up truck in Cooper Township on 9 June 2016.
Pickett was sentenced to five consecutive terms of eight to 15 years for operating while intoxicated causing death.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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19 comments
As a nation the USA has many many failings, but at least their justice system has the capacity to hand down significant and meaningful sentences to drivers that kill other road users. Whilst I don't wish to see the UK emulating the US on pretty much anything, I do wish our justice system was a lot tougher on dangerous drivers.
It varies a lot by state. Michigan, despite being the home of the US automotive industry, has been doing great recently in this respect. The Kalamazoo case also resulted in essentially lifetime imprisonment, and in the London Township case the 22 year old driver got 18-40 years.
Still, do the same thing without drugs or alcohol in your system, and don't flee the scene, and you'll get a much less severe sentence.
This is a another useful outcome of having a tame American (or expatriate?) on the site. Evidence from numerous recent UK cases suggests they would have received much lesser sentences here, along with the 'killer as victim' (he will have to live with this for the rest of his life etc. etc.)
Thanks. Born in the UK but we emigrated to the US when I was 8 and I've lived here since. I've visited the UK many times as my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) are all there. I may move back some day, and I hold dual citizenship.
The US is able to imprison more than the UK as we have way more prisons. Ours are fairly full, too, but we have four times as many prisoners per capita than the UK. The US prison population is over 2 million, about 2/3 of the population of Wales!
I also value your reports of cycling in a continental climate- we very rarely have the conditions here (parts of Scotland excepted) for your gritty winter cycling. The snow doesn't last and black ice is the problem for most- most of us just wouldn't get the use out of those studded tyres!
I would guess that the surprising size of the U.S. prison population is something to do with the privatised nature of them (more prisoners = more profit) and the fact that prisoners can be made to work for barely any wages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States
That may sustain it, but looks like the inception of having the world's biggest prison system is on the Nixon and Reagan administrations:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_prison_systems
Like many things in the US it's surprisingly recent - America does build things fast.
We're going to need a graph for this
The numbers have actually been reducing since around 2010 or so. Strangely, almost any graph you make of things in the U.S. show a sudden growth starting with Reagan's era, but unfortunately those graphs are usually for bad things (e.g. wage inequality).
Yes. Mostly the from the War on (some) Drugs.
Looks to me like drugs won that war. But yes, clamping down hard on the users of drugs is a good way to increase the prison population.
“There was a series of intentional decisions you made to [...] and that led to everything we saw. I hope with time that you’re able to recognise that.”
This statement could apply to any number of incidents in which vulnerable road users are killed, and the killer claims it was an "accident". Let's hope with time the UK justice system is able to recognise that too.
Amen - this is precisely the realisation that people need to make.
Yes, I don't deny that there will be instances where things happen that are not squarely the drivers fault - things fail, punctures happen, with all the care in the world, sometimes you'll catch some ice at an awful moment and in a way you can't reasonably predict - whilst some of these can be mitigated, they may not outright be the fault of bad driving - but people who speed, people who drink drive, people who close pass, when they cause collisions, these are a result of poor decision make that creates risk - they aren't accidents and society needs to recognise that.
I find myself always coming back to the point that we fail to acknowledge that driving is effectively the single most dangerous thing most of us encounter on a daily basis and no matter the number of KSIs - society still doesn't treat it that way.
As noted in the comments on Ashley Neal's "the motorist innocently killed..." - yes, but in that case perhaps we should have a health warning on the vehicle's binnacle: "using this vehicle to make a journey increases your risk of killing or seriously injuring others - which may have serious implications for your own life. Do you need to drive this trip?"
I thought that was a typo. 70 years!!! Didn't you mean 7 years? 70 years is a proper sentence for killing on the road. This sorry tale also highlights the addiction the US has to prescription (and controlled) drugs. No guns involved - so that's a plus in the US.
Yes - I did think that whilst this woman's actions and lack of remorse are a problem - this is clearly someone who has deep problems that aren't going to be addressed in prison.
The sad thing is that nobody involved wins out of this and I suspect, people with that level of dependency are, realistically not going to be deterred by this.
Nobody wins, but lots of people are safer
Meanwhile in the UK...
Indeed. Momentary lapse of concentration. First offence. Didn't mean to. Remorseful once caught and presented with damning evidence etc etc. 6 years perhaps.
Or two years suspended sentence with the inconvenience of an ankle tag because there's no room in the prison...