Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
Then he should be more dilligent when in charge of a dangerous weapon in public. No one forced him to drive HUA.
Suspended sentence for driver as cyclist left unable to speak or walk
Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
Ruining the lives of 2 families for a while might make drivers take more care thus reducing the chance of any lives being ruined in the future.
I like Skol
A Minging Manc...
- Location
- Sunny Ashton-under-Lyne
No, it will ruin the lives of two families! Stopping people that are incapable of taking care from driving will save lives. Your argument does work for offences like drink driving and mobile phone use though.
steveindenmark
Legendary Member
But it wont. Not in this case. He made an oversight that many of us have made in the past. He wasnt joy riding, messing about, drinking or acting like a prat. He was a guy going home who forgot to turn his lights on. Possibly for the first time in his life. What happened after that was unfortunate for everyone involved. A prison sentence would serve no purpose to anyone. You cannot teach people not to have a minor lapse of concentration by punishing other people. You can teach them not to drink and drive or use their phone whilst driving by making an example of people. But not in this case.
The judge took the case on its merits and got it right in my view. Which is good, because they often get it so wrong.
Again, we're back to your feeling that it was a one off and my feeling that this driver has done a thousand things that are fairly bad as he's not taking the responsibility seriously enough, but this time got caught out. My experience of driving amongst very large volumes of cars in London is that there's lots and lots of drivers who regularly do very low level stuff. Given enough times, some of them kill/injure. If the penalty for injury/death from such things was prison, I believe the drivers would cut down on the amount of crap driving o the point the number of injuries decreases.
You know all that from the newspaper report?
I like Skol
A Minging Manc...
- Location
- Sunny Ashton-under-Lyne
I understand your reasoning markymark but such a policy would inevitably sweep up as many capable and innocent drivers as it would reckless and incapable.
Nope, not claiming to. What I do know is that on average, 5 people a day die on our roads. Many, many more are seriously injured. I doubt they are all drink drivers or hoons joy riding but ordinary, but "careful" drivers who just don;t pay much attention. My understating of the stats is that most are at junctions from people not paying attention. As it stands people don't pay attention because they've done it 1,000 as they're "better than average drivers" and a quick g;lance is enough. Well, clearly it isn't. Better punishment would make these drivers take more care.
I bet 90% of the 1,500 killed this year are decent people who had a momentary lapse, just like the op and all deserving not to be put in prison as they are truly sorry and it was a one off.
We either tackle them all (where a driving offence has occured) in an effort to reduce or we don't bother and accept the carnage as every story is as the OP.
Are they "capable and innocent drivers" if they are guilty of a traffic offence that directly results in serous injury or death as in the op?
I like Skol
A Minging Manc...
- Location
- Sunny Ashton-under-Lyne
Even the best driver can make a mistake as described in the OP. That could have terrible consequences not even remotely commensurate with the scale of the error. That can never be ruled out without banning everyone from driving. What is needed is a testing system to filter out the people that just cannot achieve the level of awarenes required to safely drive such lethal machines or have lost that ability due to age or health. IMO the bar is currently set too low because a licence is seen as a right.
thats why we have courts to ascertain this. Not everyone kills or seriously injures. But if the punishment was more severe I believe we'd have fewer.
I like Skol
A Minging Manc...
- Location
- Sunny Ashton-under-Lyne
There seems to be some disparity in your stance. Do we have a blanket punishment as in your earlier posts or do we allow the courts to decide, based on the evidence, as happened in this case?
Stiffer penalties will make no difference unless there is policing and enforcement. Persistent poor driving can only be weeded out by this.
What I mean is that the courts are there to decide if someone if guilty of a traffic offence. If they are guilty and it results in serious injury/death, then yes prison. That would not ban everyone, but those that kill and injure.
I like Skol
A Minging Manc...
- Location
- Sunny Ashton-under-Lyne
Bare with me here because I am not familiar with the law on this. If convicted of drink driving you lose your licence. If you kill someone while drink driving you receive the same loss of licence but also separately be charged with murder/manslaughter? I.e the punishment for the driving offence is the same and the death is a separate but related crime?
I don't believe that you could impose different penalties for the same offense depending on the outcome. Driving without lights cannot receive a more serious penalty if it results in death. Now if you knew your lights were faulty but decided to make the journey anyway and killed someone then you would be tried for murder and rightly so.
I apologise if this is a rather naïve and simplistic view but I am no solicitor.
Mugshot
Cracking a solo.
To be honest I'm rather torn with this one. Am I right in thinking that the cyclist turned right across the junction into the path of the car heading the other way? The consequences are absolutely awful, but I can't help wondering if the comments here would have been the same if it had been the cyclist travelling without lights.
