Road death drivers may get life

History ( snipped-for-privacy@ohyes.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Very little new.

Death By Dangerous Driving has been on the statute books for a number of years, and Manslaughter was available before.

All this allows them to do is prosecute with less proof. Is that good?

Yes - Intent had to be provedwhilst I guess even the most dangerous useless driver never meant to kill or maime.

Bit Like drink driving a few years ago - nothing wrong blah blah but now most people realise the stupidity

lurkio ( snipped-for-privacy@privcy.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Umm, no.

Intent has to be proved for murder.

Manslaughter requires no intent. Dangerous Driving requires the driving to be proved to be inherently dangerous. Careless Driving merely requires the driving to be proved to be momentarily careless - or, to view it another way, it doesn't require the CPS to do as much work.

(Death by... obviously requires death to result from the dangerous/careless driving - that's the easy bit to prove)

As Uno-Hoo has said in another thread elsewhere, find me a driver who isn't momentarily careless.

The message from "Stuffed" contains these words:

I'm not sure public views /have/ moved that much. I suspect most of the public has been outraged for decades that you can kill someone not through trifiling inattention but though outright dangerous driving (going through a series of red lights, overtaking in really stupid places, that sort of thing) and get away with what in many people's eyes is not far short of murder with a fine and a ban.

It's not the opinions of the public that's changed, it's that the politicos have noticed there's some mileage in paying attention to it.

Guy King ( snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Which is why "Causing Death By Dangerous Driving" (14 years jail, unlimited fine) was brought in in the RTA 1988.

" "

The message from Adrian contains these words:

Would you argue that it's doing its job properly?

No. And TFA seems to suggest it's the CPS choosing not to go for that instead of Careless Driving that is the problem - so they can meet their conviction ratios, I guess.

I see one of the jailable offences is tuning a car radio. Perhaps manufacturers could be done for aiding and abetting the offence by making the radios such a sod to operate. To turn off the traffic advice I have to hit a button about 0.5 cm^2 in the middle of a whole series of identically shaped buttons, all of which are labelled with writing 2mm high, situated at gear lever height but crucially about 5 cm beyond my reach and I'm about

Although I have to say that the Ford radio in my new motor is excellent (relatively few in number) large well-marked buttons, it even has a nice big old-fashioned rotary volume knob, which also doubles up for other functions, such as bass and treble... miles better than the confusing multitude of miniscule buttons on my last radio.

The message from "malc" contains these words:

Oh, just bung an mp3 player in and listen to back issues of ISIHAC. I found one with John Cleese in it today.

Yes the Ford Van, aimed at numbskulls! :)

Guy King ( snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

You think that "more legislation which won't be used properly" is preferable to using the legislation that's already there?

The message from Adrian contains these words:

Not at all. I think the existing legistlation should be adjusted rather than have more poured on top.