Qualifying the automobile as a dangerous instrument is linked to the ‘responsibilization’ and the criminalization of individual negligent drivers in the United States. One case—State v. Fitzgerald (1978)—is selected to illustrate this particular process. The use of the dangerous instrument argument lowers the threshold of criminal liability from gross to ordinary negligence and offers judicial ground to increase the degree of culpability for negligent homicide. My argument is twofold. First, I claim that the criminalization of negligent driving points to a process whereby the motor vehicle and the negligent driver co-constitute one another. Second, I contend that criminalizing negligent driving is related to the emergence of a specific class of risks: circumstantial risks. I conclude by pushing for a Tardian turn in criminology.
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