Should death crash drivers go to jail?

8:04am Friday 11th January 2008

First published January 11, 2008

THERE'S a debate going on which I hope will never directly affect you or I.

The Government is deciding what sentences people convicted of causing death by careless driving - a new offences being brought in soon - should be given.

The idea is said to be that if someone is driving illegally in some way and someone else ends up getting killed, the driver can be prosecuted, even if they did not directly cause the death.

The proposals make a particular point of, rightly, emphasising the fact that using a mobile phone - especially texting - before a fatality should result in prison.

In the past, people involved in a fatal crash have not always faced serious charges in the courts because there was no suitable charge.

Now, that should change.

There has been predictable anger that the latest proposals suggest some killer careless drivers need not go to prison.

Even someone with a previous conviction could end up with community work rather than ending up being bars.

And it's not at all surprising people who've lost loved ones because of a crash want to see someone pay the price, even if no sentence will ever be long enough to bring the victim back.

Looking at it from another angle, I can see the logic of the proposals.

Surely even the best driver in Britain has, at some point, made a mistake while driving - a lapse of concentration or not spotting something in their blind spot.

Some of these slips could, in the wrong circumstances, have ended in tragedy - there but for the grace of God go I, the more spiritual among us might say.

But one aspect of the proposals I find it hard to stomach is the idea uninsured drivers who kill might not be jailed.

These are not people who've just made a terrible but unintentional error.

They've shown they don't care about staying within the Law, they wouldn't know the Highway Code from a hole in the road and they don't care about the welfare of other drivers in the event of even a minor crash.

They've set off, knowing they shouldn't be on the road in the first place, and if someone ends up dead, the victim's family will - and has a right to - expect them to go to prison.

EDITOR'S CHOICE

EDITOR'S CHOICE