Anything can be a lethal object, and any action could ultimately lead to you being responsible for another's death, even cycling. I take it you would be quite happy to serve jailtime for a simple mistake on your part combined with bad luck and circumstance? I know I wouldn't, I'd already be feeling horribly guilty, do I want the rest of my life ruined as well? Unfortunatly you can't rewind time no matter how harsh the punishments.
No, you can't bring back the dead. However, if a sentence causes other drivers to take more care, you might save several lives of people who would otherwise have died. In this way a hash sentence for a mobile phone killer, if it stopped a few people using their phone while driving, could effectively undo (or at least, mitigate) the damage that has been caused.
I think the idea that the sentence should not reflect the consequences is a bit of a nonsense. Or to be more precise, we've come out with exactly the opposite conclusion to the correct one.
What's the behaviour we want to discourage? Killing or maiming people through gross negligence. But many grossly negligent actions do not result in death, and we must only punish the action, not the consequence, people cry!
In that case, the sentence for gross negligence which didn't kill should be the same as for negligence that did. Otherwise, we're effectively encouraging negligent driving by 'subsidising' it with the punishment attributable to the lowest possible consequence.
