What a f*ckin joke!

Killer drivers could avoid jail

"Where the level of carelessness is low and there are no aggravating factors, even the fact that death was caused is not sufficient to justify a prison sentence."

i wonder, if the person killed was a family member of who ever is behind this, would they still feel the same?

Cunts.
It's the message it sends isn't it?
Oh I am in control of a 2 tonne deathbox, good that I am not really expected to concentrate 100% of the time any more.
Which leaves more attention for things like sending/receiving text messages, programming the Sat-Nav, watching a DVD, tuning the radio/CD, staring at Women's asses, reading the Sun, fighting with wife/kids ..

Killing people is kinda careless.

dt, you are right, liberal attitudes usually get thrown out the window when it happens to someone they love. think Clockwork Orange

Over crowded prison

|³|MA3K Cunts.
It's the message it sends isn't it?
Oh I am in control of a 2 tonne deathbox, good that I am not really expected to concentrate 100% of the time any more. .

spot on....if you ever want to kill someone knock them down in your car.

Word.

|³|MA3K Cunts.
It's the message it sends isn't it?
Oh I am in control of a 2 tonne deathbox, good that I am not really expected to concentrate 100% of the time any more.

Exactly... if you're driving a potentially dangerous weapon then you should be expected, by law, to be paying attention at all times.

I wonder how it would go if it were a cyclist that killed someone during a momentary lapse of concentration?

ha, and that copper who stopped me this morning gave me a £30 lecture on road safety AND self preservation...

Yeah and if you can't pay attention, pull over, rest, whatever.
The law should be a strong deterrent for selfish people to not put themselves above everyone else on pain of losing their liberty.

All this law change proposal does is remove the deterrent - Rights without responsibilities.

Erm, isn't this to fill a gap in the law so that more drivers can be punished for fatal accidents? Isn't that a good thing?

At present, if you are able to convince a judge or jury that you weren't driving dangerously, you get let off as in law you have to explicitly be guilty of a crime to be punished for it (ah, but your honour whilst I did hit him, that was an accident as I wasn't driving dangerously as my tachymeter and sat nav will assist in proving, below speed limit and nice line down the road).

This new law prevents that by saying that whilst you weren't driving dangerously you were still careless, so still deserve some punishment.

As it stands, you can walk away without any punishment if you are able to convince the judge or jury that you were not consciously driving dangerously.

Isn't that what this is about?

Must you muddy the waters with a proper understanding of the issues?

Thiis s a place of hearsay and conjecture. We'll have no logical, referenced, researched arguments here!

Couldn't agree more. I've already put my own ill-informed opinion on this matter in that other thread and was quite happy with myself until that ^^^^ was posted.

if you're driving a car carelessly then you're also driving it dangerously. And if you hit and kill someone because of it you should be punished as such.

I don't think introducing a 'careless driving offence' that can result in drivers who kill only doing community service is the correct way to address the problems you mention. They should just tighen down on the law that allready exists to make sure no-one slips through

reminds me of the copenhagen video now. less laws and signs and guidance, just better urban planning, but the drivers are scared shitless over the possibility of running someone over.

dt if you're driving a car carelessly then you're also driving it dangerously. And if you hit and kill someone because of it you should be punished as such.

I don't think introducing a 'careless driving offence' that can result in drivers who kill only doing community service is the correct way to address the problems you mention. They should just tighen down on the law that allready exists to make sure no-one slips through

But if they tighten the law so much so that 'dangerous' covers 'true accident in which a slippery road is to blame and not the driver' then they will have to drop the penalties associated with 'dangerous'.

Law IS black and white. It has to be explicit, and there aren't exceptions. Here's it been found that it is the nature of the law that those who aren't driving dangerously do get let off even when a fatality has occurred. And of course it's human nature to want to demand retribution and to ensure that when a life is lost that someone is held to account. Whether that is fair is another thing, sometimes people do die, accidents do happen.

Anyhow, the creation of this law is to fill the gap below 'dangerous' driving, without diluting the definition of 'dangerous' so that those who are truly reckless and result in the loss of life are imprisoned and punished severely. But those who are not so reckless and were not driving dangerously but for whatever reason still resulted in the loss of a life are still punished.

This law punishes more people, not less.
It does not dilute existing laws.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, you go to jail.
If you kill someone truly accidentally and were not driving dangerously, this new law will now punish you where in the past you would have walked.

Surely this is a good thing?

of course, the way the law is enforced and implemented is just as important.

what's the point of having the law if the Police don't give a shit and the CPS won't bring it or Judges won't impose enough sentencing?

Bike theft anyone?

it may punish more people, but it may also punish them less harshly than they should.

To me, if you kill someone because of "momentary inattention" or by "being distracted by satellite navigation equipment", then you should be treated as if you were driving dangerously and imprisoned, not given community service. Maybe if there were tougher sentences then drivers would start to pay more attention to what they are doing?

My reading of it is quite different.

At the moment there are two offences - "Careless Driving" and "Dangerous Driving".

This adds a 'middle' offence of "Death by Careless Driving" - the penalties of which are midway between the two.

The thing is that I am a cyclist who also sometimes drives a car... so this new offence does seem quite sensible. The debate in the media seems to be about the lowest penalty for causing death by careless driving. It is worth noting that the maximum term is five years, which again seems about right.

dt Killer drivers could avoid jail

"Where the level of carelessness is low and there are no aggravating factors, even the fact that death was caused is not sufficient to justify a prison sentence."

i wonder, if the person killed was a family member of who ever is behind this, would they still feel the same?

Hmmm... that is sort of why the law is impartial (and why the statue of justice is blindfolded) - so that personal feelings are not considered.

After all, if a toddler ran into the road in front of my bike, and I caused them injury, the last person whose opinion I would want on the situation is the toddlers mother.

The law is usually fine if implemented as intended. The problems is lawyers who manipulate the law and use the law for a purpose for which it was no intended. This often results in someones sentence being changed for better / worse in a situation for which the original law was not intended, everyone knows it was not intended for this but due to the fact that it law the jury and judge have no choice. This is inevitable with any law due to the ambiguity created in language. An pointless point I know as the entire situation is unavoidable.

Exactly... as highlighted by Kathy and Elizabeth's current situation in The Archers...

...

I'll get my coat.