Blame the victim or cars rule, pedestrians drool

I just read this sad article where the pedestrian mother of a 4 year old child was convicted of vehicular homicide when he was run down by a hit and run driver because he darted into traffic while attempting to cross the road at an intersection without a crosswalk due, in part, to a lack of safe crossings on the road. Worse, she can now spend more time in jail then the driver -- all because she tried to cross the street in front of her home in lieu of walking a half mile in both directions. Who knew walking one minute in lieu of at least 20 minutes could get you 36 months if you are poor enough to live on a poorly designed road?

From this article, it sounds as if the child ran out into the road while they were waiting for traffic to clear (don't know how long the pedestrian signal is, but I know of plenty of wide roads where slower pedestrians need to wait in the middle on a traffic island for a second signal change to complete the crossing). Would it have made a difference if the child had darted out into traffic in front of the drunk driver at the crosswalk while waiting for the light (I'm assuming there was one there, the article doesn't say though I think I found it on Google maps and saw there was a light) to change? If so, why?

In this case, it sounds like no one should be legally blamed. The child probably would have been run down even by a sober driver and the mother could just as easily have lost control of him at the crosswalk.

I feel for the mother. Maybe it is because I live in an area where the fairly well to do also take mass transit to work in NYC and live in an area where we have bus stops at a similar location as in the story. When my neighborhood was built the bus stop was on a fairly quiet 2 lane road and the bus stop at a full intersection. Today, the NJ Transit commuter bus, in the same location, picks up/leaves people on a 55MPH (in theory) divided roadway at stops where the nearest crosswalk is a 1/4 mile up the road. When I took the bus I never came close to having a car run into me while illegally crossing Rt 9 in the evening. Ironically, there were a few close calls in the crosswalks from drivers turning right & not paying attention (at least NJ has stepped up ticketing drivers like that). A real jury of her peers would have been fellow mass transit riders, no matter the race, parenting ability or income level. I also question what was not said in the article to make the prosecutor's decision to charge her seem so mean spirited.