Time to get tough on killer drivers

NEXT time you climb behind the wheel of your car, think on. If tough new measures to crack down on bad driving get the go-ahead, you will be taking charge of a potentially lethal weapon - one that could see you going to jail.

The Government's proposals to get tough with bad drivers announced yesterday are not necessarily aimed at the boy racers who think it is funny to jump lights and overtake on blind bends. If their driving is bad enough, they can face a charge of causing death by dangerous driving, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.

Instead, the new measures are aimed at those killer motorists whose driving isn't quite bad enough to count as "dangerous" in court. That may well include some boy racers. But it will also include other motorists who kill - those who run down a child because they are chatting on their mobile phone, for example, or who knock over a cyclist because they were distracted for a moment and didn't see him turning ahead.

Ordinary motorists, in other words, who through a moment's carelessness end up killing someone.

The proposal to create a new offence of causing death by careless driving - with a maximum sentence of five years in prison - is the most controversial of the new measures.

Others included in the Home Office consultation document published yesterday include;

- Creating a new offence of death resulting from illegal driving with a maximum sentence of five years, aimed at unlicensed or disqualified drivers who kill;

- A requirement for courts to take serious injuries into account when sentencing;

- An alternative verdict of guilty of statutory driving offences when manslaughter is not proved.

- Less serious motoring offences such as driving while disqualified to be dealt with by non-custodial sentences, such as electronic tagging or community work.

The overall effect of the measures, if passed, would be to make it much more likely in future that any driver who caused a road accident in which someone died may end up in prison.

The Government is clear about why it is seeking to toughen the law.

"Too many people are still killed or seriously injured as a result of dangerous, careless and illegal driving," said Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland, announcing the proposals yesterday.

"We need to ensure that the criminal law plays an effective role in protecting road users and pedestrians, and that the justice system is on the side of the victim."

The proposals will be welcomed by many families left devastated by the death of a loved one in a road accident. Too often, those responsible for such deaths walk free from court with little more than a token fine.

But will these suggested new measures work? And just as important, are they really fair? We canvassed a few opinions:

Andrew Howard - Head of road safety for the AA Motoring Trust

The AA generally welcomes the proposals - not because they will lead to an improvement in driving standards (Mr Howard doesn't necessarily think they will) but in the interests of simple justice.

The new measures would close a loophole which allows motorists whose careless driving causes a tragic accident to walk from court with little more than a fine.

"There is a need for something like this. At the moment quite a lot of cases fall through the gap, so that people who have been decided to be driving badly and have killed have walked out of court with a £200 fine. The system needs to be tidied up."

The AA is concerned with the standards of evidence that will apply in court. If causing death by careless driving carries a custodial sentence, Mr Howard says, it is only right that the standards of evidence required to prove the case are just as high as those applied to other offences that carry an equivalent custodial sentence.

That is not always easy with motoring offences. How, for example, do you establish who was ultimately responsible for a multi-vehicle pile-up on a motorway in which many may have died?

"Motoring offences are quite commonly witness-less," Mr Howard said. "Often a driver himself doesn't know what happened, and the victim may not be there. It is important that there is a full, provable case."

Mick Natt - Retired senior accident investigator with North Yorkshire police who now works as a "collisions investigation consultant"

All needless deaths on the roads are tragic, Mick says. But it is the motorist's driving that should be judged - not the consequences of that driving, however tragic they may be.

We all make mistakes occasionally when we are driving. It may be a split second of indecision at a roundabout, a moment's inattention while pulling out of a parking space, a failure to spot another driver signalling.

That is what worries Mick Natt about the new proposals. "Imagine you're in your driveway, about to set off for work," Mick says. "You pull out of the drive, looking left, looking right, but for whatever reason fail to see a cyclist. You knock him off his bike, he falls into the road, and a car coming the other way runs over him and kills him.

"Should you really go to prison for five years for that?"

One of the problems, he says, is that careless driving covers such a wide range of driving behaviour - from a moment's inattention to driving bordering on the reckless - and it would be unfair for drivers at different extremes of the "careless driving" spectrum who killed someone all to get the same sentence.

"So are we going to have different gradients of careless driving - Careless 1, Careless 2, Careless 3?" he asks.

He welcomes the proposed new offence of death resulting from illegal driving. But he accuses the Government of trying to "have its cake and eat it" when it proposes to treat disqualified drivers who do not kill or injure anyone as less serious offenders for whom an electronic tag or community work might be appropriate.

Either driving while disqualified is serious or it isn't, he says: the Government can't have it both ways.

The policy on non-custodial sentences for disqualified drivers is simply aimed at "emptying prisons", he believes- and is inconsistent with the other proposed measures.

Kirstie Buckle - Victim of an accident caused by reckless driving in which her son was killed

KIRSTIE has more reason that most to be angry with reckless drivers.

A year ago her three-year-old son, Blake Spencer, was killed when motorist Justin Martin overtook a school bus on a bend near Saxton, Tadcaster and his Mitsubishi smashed head-on into Kirstie's Rover.

The impact killed Blake and left Kirstie, who now lives with her mother and step-father in Sherburn-in-Elmet, so badly injured she was in a wheelchair for months and had to undergo a dozen gruelling operations.

Kirstie is still recovering physically. The mental scars will never leave her - and were re-opened afresh recently when Martin, who was sentenced to nearly four years in prison after admitting dangerous driving, launched an appeal to get his sentence reduced.

Kirstie has been campaigning for longer jail terms for drivers who kill - so does she support the Government's proposals?

Any sentence increase is good, she says - but instead of creating new offences she would prefer the Government to concentrate on giving proper sentencing guidelines for the existing offence of causing death by dangerous driving.

There is already a maximum sentence of 14 years for that offence - but nobody ever gets anything like that. The only real way to deter motorists from driving dangerously or recklessly is to set a minimum sentence of perhaps five years in prison, she says. The new proposals don't do this.

People have to be made to realise how dangerous a car can be, Kirstie says. "You could kill somebody. It could be a child, it could be a friend. It could be a member of your family. Driving dangerously isn't clever."

The proposals...

The Government's consultation paper, Review Of Road Traffic Offences Involving Bad Driving, is available on the Home office website at www.homeoffice.gov.uk People have until May 6 this year to respond.

Proposed measures include:

- Careless driving to be properly defined so it covers all driving below the standard of a competent driver

- A new offence of causing death by careless driving, to ensure the fatal consequences of careless driving are taken into account. Maximum sentence of five years.

- A new offence of death caused by disqualified or unlicensed drivers. Maximum sentence of five years.

- In the case of non-fatal injuries caused by careless driving, the court should be able to take into account when sentencing the extent of injury caused

- Alternative verdicts to be allowed if a charge of manslaughter is brought but not proved.

The Government is also seeking views on the following;

- Should jail sentences be given where a careless driver causes injury but not death?

- Should uninsured drivers be included in the new offence of death caused by disqualified or unlicensed drivers?

Updated: 11:33 Friday, February 04, 2005