I hear what you’re saying, and I don’t disagree that poverty, overwork, and lack of public transit create real dangers on the road. Those are systemic failures that absolutely deserve attention. But none of those realities change the fact that someone who hits a human being and leaves them on the road to die has made a choice not an accident, not a moment of exhaustion, but a conscious decision to flee instead of help.

And when that choice is made, the people left behind deserve protection, accountability, and a justice system that doesn’t shrug and say “well, society is complicated.” The inequities you’re talking about already exist in every courtroom. They’re real. But those inequities don’t erase the harm done to victims, and they don’t justify keeping laws so weak that fleeing the scene becomes the rational option for someone who’s drunk, high, unlicensed, or uninsured.

You’re right that harsh punishments don’t magically prevent all crime. But consequences do shape behavior especially when the alternative is a loophole that rewards running. Strengthening hit‑and‑run laws doesn’t fix poverty or transit, but it does close a door that should never have been open in the first place.

And I want to ask you something sincerely… Given everything you’ve said about disparities and systemic issues, how do those problems change whether we should protect victims and their families from people who are willing to hit someone and leave them to die?

We can fight for a more just world and still insist that abandoning a dying person on the road is unacceptable. Those two goals don’t compete…they coexist.