What a f*ckin joke!

dt

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?

I'm with this, because these days careless driving IS dangerous driving: the implications are the same.

Even if I held a full shotgun license, if I went and waved an empty gun around in a shopping centre the police would shoot me dead, just in case.

nobody's perfect, but if tighter laws were enforced then people might think twice about driving like dicks or faffing with the tomtom, or talking on the fucking phone.

after all, there was talk about upping the penalty for using a mobile because so many cunts were blatantly flaunting the law!

and cyclists get shit for riding on a pavement, FFS

right, that's riled me enough to go and do some washing up.

Okay... but I am sure there are times when I have not indicated, not mirror-signalled-manouvered because of carelessness - and got away with it because the streets were empty or whatever. If (god forbid) I caused a death, should I really be treated the same as someone who was speeding, or drove through a red light?

The same with cyclists riding on the pavement. Sure it is fine... until you hit someone.

I know that the police are inconsistent, as are judges and most of all juries, but the law shouldn't be.

ro-LAND Okay... but I am sure there are times when I have not indicated, not mirror-signalled-manouvered because of carelessness - and got away with it because the streets were empty or whatever. If (god forbid) I caused a death, should I really be treated the same as someone who was speeding, or drove through a red light?
.

you wouldn't be.

but if you were using a phone and dicking about with a satnav and ran over a child, would you expect to walk away scott free?

most of the time these things can't be proven, speeding and running red lights usually can..

No... but that was sort of the point I was making... there are degrees.

In response to

"surely Careless Driving IS dangerous driving"

I was trying to say... well... no, I don't think it is.

velocity boy

This law punishes more people, not less.
It does not dilute existing laws.
If you drive dangerously and kill someone, you go to jail.

At the risk of being argumentative, try telling that to the family of Emma Foa. It's an emotive subject and I'm not suggesting that the driver in this case set out to harm anyone, but he was 'looking for papers' while turning left and crushed Ms. Foa to death between the railings and his truck. And that's 'careless' and not 'dangerous' driving? He still has a licence to drive a truck, btw.

TheBrick(Tommy) Over crowded prison

but the police cells have plenty of room for rljing cyclests

Manslaughter by gross negligence

Under English law, where a person causes death through extreme carelessness or incompetence, gross negligence is required. While the specifics of negligence may vary from one jurisdiction to another, it is generally defined as failure to exercise a reasonable level of precaution given the circumstances and so may include both acts and omissions. The defendants in such cases are often people carrying out jobs that require special skills or care, such as doctors, police or prison officers, or electricians, who fail to meet the standard which could be expected from a reasonable person of the same profession and cause death. In R v Bateman 1925 Cr. App R. 8 the Court of Criminal Appeal held that gross negligence manslaughter involved the following elements:

the defendant owed a duty to the deceased to take care;
the defendant breached this duty;
the breach caused the death of the deceased; and
the defendant's negligence was gross, that is, it showed such a disregard for the life and safety of others as to amount to a crime and deserve punishment.

The House of Lords in Seymour 1983 2 AC 493 sought to identify the mens rea for "motor manslaughter" (negligently causing death when driving a motor vehicle). Reference was made to Caldwell 1982 AC 341 and Lawrence 1982 AC 510 which held that a person was reckless if:
he did an act which in fact created an obvious and serious risk of injury to the person or substantial damage to property; and
when he did the act he either had not given any thought to the possibility of there being any such risk or had recognised that there was some risk involved and had nonetheless gone on to do it.

The conclusion was that for motor manslaughter (and, by implication, for all cases of gross negligence), it was more appropriate to adopt this definition of recklessness. Consequently, if the defendant created an obvious and serious risk of causing physical injury to someone, there could be liability whether there was simple inadvertence or conscious risk-taking. It was no longer a defence to argue that the negligence had not been gross.

does anyone still feel that there's a need for that new so-called "careless driving" after reading the above?

you'd think they'd be cracking down more on phone users whilst driving not slacking off. This is like a "go ahead" sign to some motorists. Its crazy.

dt
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?

Well said.

edmundane does anyone still feel that there's a need for that new so-called "careless driving" after reading the above?

WRT the last paragraph - and if I understand it to mean the negligence does not have to be 'gross' in terms of driving a car - then no. And if you are a truck driver looking for papers and you kill a cyclist then it you should be prosecuted...

In no way an expert, but again, this argument is about the minimum sentences. I can see the logic that faffing with your satnav / getting some papers out of the glove box is more careless than say misreading a bend / conditions.

Is guidance given to those who dole out the sentences to say for a satnav fiddler, slap him with 2 years in prison vs a genuine moment of inattention being given 1 years community?

ro-LAND [quote]edmundane does anyone still feel that there's a need for that new so-called "careless driving" after reading the above?

WRT the last paragraph - and if I understand it to mean the negligence does not have to be 'gross' in terms of driving a car - then no. And if you are a truck driver looking for papers and you kill a cyclist then it you should be prosecuted...[/quote]

what i'm trying to say is i find the original one adequate. it's about how the law is enforced and executed in court. we simply don't need that new in-between with regards to dt's concerns and POV.

by the way where's buffalo bill?