David Jenkins
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 11:59 AM |
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I'm puzzled about penalties for 'death by dangerous driving'
This has come up on the BBC News pages:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4392584.stm
Why do you need special penalties for killing someone by driving badly? In other environments, if you cause the death of someone by carelessness or
stupidity you usually face a manslaughter charge. Why should drivers be any different?
If a driver kills someone else, I feel that the choices should be "accident", "manslaughter" or "murder". There
shouldn't be a "death by dangerous driving" option.
<rant off>
David
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NS Dev
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 12:14 PM |
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Have to say I agree with that.
The accident one would be the tricky one, because being killed by a car is always going to be emotive for somebody but there are genuine accidents,
which should have been classed as such, but ended up being "death by dangerous driving".
Likewise there are no doubt cases which should have been "manslaughter" or even "murder" but were also lumped into the
"death by dangerous driving" conviction.
I certainly agree with you on that one.
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Fozzie
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 12:21 PM |
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Absolutely agree! I could never fathom as to why there was such confusion over the death by dangerous driving, it should never have been classed in
the first place (IMO)
I agree that its either an accident, manslaughter or murder. A vehicle after all is a very powerful weapon!
My rant over!
Fozzie
'Racing is Life!...anything before or after is just waiting'....Steve McQueen
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ned
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 12:24 PM |
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to quote the bbc website linked above:
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There would also be a new offence of "causing death when driving while unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured", carrying a sentence of up
to two years.
-----
is that really the best they could come up with?!!!!
Ned.
beware, I've got yellow skin
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Aboardman
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 12:29 PM |
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There would also be a new offence of "causing death when driving while unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured", carrying a sentence of up
to two years.
should be min 2 years
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GParkes
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 12:42 PM |
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My issue on the whole death whilst driving offense is that it is dependant on the type of car you are driving.
If you hit someone in a rusty old mini whilst driving dangerously in your Bentley, they are more likely to be killed than if you are driving your
rusty old mini dangerously and collide with someone in a Bentley.
I assume the 2 years for driving unlicensed etc would be in addition to the five years otherwise those who are driving illegally get off lightly!
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ChrisGamlin
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 12:44 PM |
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Looking at it the other way, if there was a 10-20 year jail sentence hanging over someone and there was the slightest doubt about the evidence,
you'd probably find that a lot more get away without punishment because the jury would be less inclined to give a guilty verdict with so much at
stake for the defendant.
Does manslaughter and then murder sit above the "death by dangerous driving" charge as an option for the prosection, or is it just DBDD
or nothing? If the latter, then I think the more conventional charges should also be allowed to be considered if the prosecution feel they have a
sufficient case.
Chris
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MikeR
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 12:50 PM |
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i think the problem is all around the area of intent.
if you intend to kill someone its murder,
if you don't plan to kill someone its manslaugher
if its an accident its an accident.
So i'm driving a little quickly but within the speed limit, i have an accident and someone dies. I've not planned to kill them, i
don't intend to kill them but i've not been responsible in my actions so its not an accident.
ah heck, who knows, i can't figure this out, at least its keeping a lawyer in work.
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NS Dev
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 12:54 PM |
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that's exactly it. How do you define "responsible"
This dilemma is the crux of the whole claims culture enveloping the western world.
Obviously the devil would be in the detail, but if the court were looking on dbdd as a lesser alternative to manslaughter, then the verdict should
almost certainly be accidental.
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smart51
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 12:57 PM |
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My understanding is that it is murder if you deliberatly set out to kill someone. Manslaughter is if you deliberatly do something to someone which
results in their death but you didn't plan to kill them (i.e. "I only wanted to teach him a lesson, I didn't think he would
die"
Death by dangerous driving is driving dangerously (worse than carelessly) which leads to you causing someone to die. e.g doing 100 MPH in a
residential street, loosing control and killing someone.
The new offence will be death by careless driving, so the BBC seems to say. This might be runing someone over because you were looking at your radio
rather than where you were going.
Manslaughter or murder in a car would have to be if you INTENDED to run them over rather than running them over due to stupidity or incompetance.
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MikeP
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 01:07 PM |
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There's a writer over here (Jim Kenzie) that wants us to stop using the term "accident" to refer to collisions. His point is that
it's never "an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance" nor "lack of intention or necessity". It's always
the result of negligence by one or all of the parties involved. He want's to get rid of the notion that they are ever blameless and
unpreventable.
Manslaughter seems a much more appropriate charge with this view. It would be a shame to ruin more lives though unless there was a danger of offending
again - I doubt stricter penalties would be a deterrent. Maybe we could be more effective if there was a greater social stigma associate with
inattentive driving like there is with drunk driving - like cell phone use when the vehicle is moving, etc.
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NS Dev
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 01:13 PM |
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well Jim Kenzie is an inhuman Wan*er then! What an utter twat.
I take it that he is a lawyer or in some way connected with the legal system in a manner to increase his personal wealth.
Hopefull he will be on the recieving end of an "accident" that can't happen.
I will say no more.
[Edited on 31/10/05 by NS Dev]
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ChrisGamlin
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 01:19 PM |
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So who's to blame in this Jim Kenzie's world when a tree falls on your car whilst driving along, or a deer runs out in front of you and
you crash because the impact has knocked you unconcious?
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smart51
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 01:37 PM |
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The term accident is used because collisions are usually not deliberate. Accident does also imply that the crasher is blameless to at least some
extent. Often one or other driver is careless, malicious, incompetant or ignorant. Sometimes collisions are accidental.
Consider someone who runs over some debris in the road, like a nail or some broken glass, blown there by high winds in a storm. That debris caused a
tyre to fail catastrophically. Despite the best efforts of an experianced and capable driver who was allert and concentrating on driving, the car
swerves causing a collision. Is this not an "accident"? Whose fault is it? the driver for not performing a miracle? the wind? The
manufacturer of the nail?
Just because some crashes are caused by ar5eholes, it doesn't mean that they all are, no matter how upset the victims are.
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NS Dev
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 01:47 PM |
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Exactly right.
Imcompetence should be punished, but it is not always the case that incompetence caused an accident.
unfortunately the human cost of some accidents is very high, and the emotional side of this causes blame to be unfairly attributed.
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JoelP
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 03:50 PM |
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IMHO, we seem to have the definition of manslaughter slightly wrong  Manslaughter is any criminal act resulting in death, but obviously not
intentional. If you were 'trying to teach someone a lesson but never meant to kill him' you would normally be correctly convicted of
murder. Manslaughter would include killing someone by gross negligance (ie, a fatality resulting from chucking a beer bottle out of a car window, or
doing bad gas work, or selling poor quality car jacks, or failing to maintain a railway line etc)
just thought id add that.
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 03:56 PM |
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That was my interpretation - killing someone "without malice aforethought" (or however it's spelled).
DJ
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ned
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 04:08 PM |
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so, forgive my ignorance but would driving above the speed limit (but with due care and attention) and being involved in an accident put you up for
manslaughter? speeding is a criminal offence isn't it as opposed to a civil offence? so say doing 75-80mph on a dual carriageway/motorway (guess
they have to proove that) and having an accident potentially makes 80+% of drivers (rough guess of drivers that drive at these speeds or higher) on
these roads potential manslaughter fellans?
Ned.
ps You'd never believe I work with Lawyers, Barristers, QC's, ex Lord chief justice and the like would you!
beware, I've got yellow skin
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David Jenkins
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 04:13 PM |
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I tried to do a Google to find a definition of manslaughter in UK law. (and Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, etc). It's very clear that it's a difficult
area, with the difference between it and murder being a major part of law student's course work! Little chance of us getting it right...
In general though, it seems to be unintentionally causing someone's death through an illegal act. The example I saw was a trespasser dropping a
stone down a mineshaft and killing someone down below. He didn't go with the intent of killing someone, but did, unintentionally.
Incidentally, drivers have been charged with manslaughter in the past, but it's very rare.
DJ
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ChrisGamlin
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 06:01 PM |
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After reading this thread at lunchtime I was wondering exactly the same as Ned, is speeding classified as careless driving?
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MikeP
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 07:41 PM |
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quote:
Originally posted by NS Dev
well Jim Kenzie is an inhuman Wan*er then! What an utter twat.
[Edited on 31/10/05 by NS Dev]
LOL, he's been called worse. He's an automotive journalist here in Canada.
He makes his points rather abrasively, but I usually agree with him. In this case he's talking about the majority of "accidents"
that are caused by inattentiveness, impaired driving, driving too fast, lack of skill/training, etc. He'd rather we stop shrugging them off as
unavoidable and try to figure out how to reduce or eliminate them. Usually he doesn't blame incompetence but often does blame lack of training.
(I hope I'm not butchering his ideas too much).
Hitting a deer? Running over debris left by the wind? Too fast for conditions IMO (not to say I wouldn't make the same mistake, but it is a
mistake).
Tree falling on a car? An accident, assuming it wasn't windy and the tree was properly maintained.
Can't be incompetence, then the blame would be squarely on the government who licensed us to drive in the first place !
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JoelP
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 07:46 PM |
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obviously we can misinterpret him, or not overlook his poor wording, but he really means that in many accidents, someone is to blame. Certainly in
every one ive been involved in, someone was to blame. Obviously mechanical failure is sometimes unavoidable, and acts of god/nature, but i bet if we
all drove according to the letter of the highway code, at least 95% of accidents wouldnt happen. We'd also all be perminantly late and pissed
of, but thats another matter except the highway code probably says set off in good time too! 
[Edited on 31/10/05 by JoelP]
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steve_gus
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 07:46 PM |
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I dont understand the causing death when uninsured charge.
Surely its what you did that counts, not that you didnt have insurance or tax. Would the person have lived, and things been ok, if you had that bit of
paper from Norwich Union.
Its a bollox charge. If someone was driving without insurance, and someone chucks themselves under your car as a suicide, then you go down. What sense
is there in that?
atb
steve
http://www.locostbuilder.co.uk
Just knock off the 's'!
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jollygreengiant
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 07:49 PM |
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The thing to remember about speed limits are that they are maximum speed limits for that road (or section of that) you are on, but as a responsible
driver you are expected to drive safely at all times and the speed you are traveling at should reflect the road/weather/visibility conditions
applicable at that time.
Would 70mph on a motorway be considered safe in a thick fog with only 10 meters visibility?
Would 30mph be considered safe on a narrow country road, with houses around, at night, in an area where there are known herds of deer (hence warning
signs)?
Would 40mph be a safe speed through a wooded area, whilst there is torrential rain (20 metres visibility) and gale force winds (80mph +)?
I believe that in Germany the police take the attitude that there is NO such thing as an accident and SOMEONE is ALWAYS responsible. Even if its the
mechanic who failed to do a bolt up.!
Occasionally you do get events that are beyond a drivers control (speed/steering/visibility) and we had one recently(ish) where an older lady stepped
off the kerb in front of a bus (as it was turning into another road) and she was killed instantly. In this case the investigation exhoneratated the
bus driver on the grounds that she had possibly diliberately stepped into the road but to this day they do not know if she had or had not seen the
bus. Personaly I feel deep sympathy for the bus driver likewise train drivers who are completely helpless when it happens to them.
The main problem lies with the lack of proper public transport, and, that as a working population, we no longer live within walking distance OR
sensible public transport distance of our places of employment.
Consider the possibility that the government recognises this and the fact that if they started cracking down on the drivers with severe penalties for
driving then the economy would colapse fairly quickly and the prisons would fill up very rapidly. They are however quite happy to accept a large
income from speeding drivers and do nothing about improving general driving standards or the policing of those standards of driving.
OK lads debate that lot.
Oh and I do know what it is like to have a pedestrian step into my path, serveral years ago I followed some cars past a school bus, half way along I
spotted feet crossing the front of the bus, I STOPPED. The twelve year old boy didn't and ran into the stationary nearside front of my car. He
got some bruises, but it could have been worse. 5 hours later I got a grilling from the (BEDFORDSHIRE) police. The only thing that saved me was that I
had imediately reported the incident to the local station (NORTHANTS).
Even now it scares the cr*p out of me.
Beware of the Goldfish in the tulip mines. The ONLY defence against them is smoking peanut butter sandwiches.
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steve_gus
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| posted on 31/10/05 at 07:58 PM |
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The case in 1984 where two miners killed a taxi driver dropping a brick of a bridge was eventually judged to be mansluaghter, as they had not set out
to kill. Thats the malice aforthought bit.
Problem is with car legislation is there is no murder or manslaughter - simply 'causing death' - so its really a bit of a meaningless
debate.
Proletarian pleaser legislation.
atb
steve
quote:
Originally posted by David Jenkins
I tried to do a Google to find a definition of manslaughter in UK law. (and Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, etc). It's very clear that it's a difficult
area, with the difference between it and murder being a major part of law student's course work! Little chance of us getting it right...
In general though, it seems to be unintentionally causing someone's death through an illegal act. The example I saw was a trespasser dropping a
stone down a mineshaft and killing someone down below. He didn't go with the intent of killing someone, but did, unintentionally.
Incidentally, drivers have been charged with manslaughter in the past, but it's very rare.
DJ
http://www.locostbuilder.co.uk
Just knock off the 's'!
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