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Comment by bell-cot | Hacker News Reader

> Both [bereaved] parents are also lawyers;

If all you have (for both worldview & skills) is a hammer...

> One of the arguments the case makes is that, without the motor, the girls wouldn’t have been on the top of the hill in the first place.

If you don't believe that kids (ages 11 & 12) can get a bike to the top of a hill, with the thrill of a fast (exciting, dangerous) ride down the hill as inducement - then maybe you should not be allowed to be a parent. And it's not like the parents involved were magically ignorant of the existence of a steep hill in the area.

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And that's how these things are going to start requiring motorcycle registrations to ride. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

They are not much different than 49cc mopeds terms of speed, are they?

A child died in my city tobogganing last winter.

Now the city posts tobogganing hills when they're too icy.

> If all you have (for both worldview & skills) is a hammer...

All too true. Law school was very eye opening in this regard. I can't count the number of times that other students were baffled by technical aspects related to the internet or cybersecurity. All to often, in response to their ignorance, one student would raise their hand to insist we pass legislation requiring anyone working in the technical field to be subject to the decisions of a committee of legislators or propose some quasi products liability statute to make the workers do exactly what "the public" wanted.

> If all you have (for both worldview & skills) is a hammer...

Yup, it's a fishing expedition:

> arguing that the helmet Molly wore was defective

Really the bike and the helmet? what else is to blame, the hill?

They may or may not have had any awareness their kid was going to ride on a friends e-bike - but this is the real issue, e-bikes are not much different to small motorbikes, powered cycles are one of the most dangerous modes of transport, society needs to start appropriately considering them as such.

I wish lawyers would lose their license when they're obviously attacking people (or in this case companies) in bad faith. This is ridiculous, go grieve like a normal person.

It would be nice if rad power could get their fees paid for this obviously frivolous law suit, but they will probably settle because the steinsapirs can run up the costs way beyond any reasonable jury verdict

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