Littering in Md. can land you in jail for 5 years. Killing someone in a bike lane? Considerably less.

If you want to kill someone, do it with a car. So goes the maxim in the street safety community, which is outraged by the light penalties imposed on drivers when they kill pedestrians and cyclists on roadways across America. I am outraged, too. Eighteen months ago, my wife, Sarah Debbink Langenkamp, a U.S. diplomat and the mother of our two boys, was crushed when a driver for Beacon Building Supply swung his 50,000 pound truck into his parking lot without seeing Sarah, who was riding her bike in a clearly marked bike lane.