seen this?

I believe that's how the law works. Speeding is the offence, and the law doesn't judge on the basis of the results of the offence. I believe the idea is you give out the same punishment to those who (unfortunately) cause death and those who are lucky to escape that consequence of their offence. The alternative is to reward people who got lucky despite offending.

There's nothing to stop them adding an offence "causing death by speeding" and setting higher penalties for it, like they have done for some other offences. But that doesn't seem to have been done as yet, therefore the existing guidelines will apply to both cases equally, which means there will be quite serious maximum penalties available for sentencing to allow for ploughing through a bus queue as well.

Welcome to the world of Usenet, where arguments are pointless and logic is chopped ruthlessly. SteveH is something of a savant at logic-chopping. I think he has a special section of his brain reserved for it.

Albert

Exactly

But thats not fair, its just giving into lynch mobs. Why should someone doing 35mph in 30 get away with 3 points and a £60, but the next day someone else does it but hits a kid and gets locked away?

OK, now read it again. 116mph is not 'a small lapse of concentration'. It was not an accident. He was intending to go as fast as he could, putting himself and others in danger, and so should be punished severely.

Geeze if all he could do was 116 he's not trying hard enough.

In 800 yards ? I may not condone it, but I'm certainly impressed with it :)

Not going to be from a standing start is it? And you'd be impressed, driving a Rover...

Thanks, I guess I have a bit of learning to do on that front. ;)

So, in this case, you're perfectly happy with people flying through light-controlled junctions at 60mph, then?

Shirley it's safer to go through a light controlled junction at 60 than a non light controlled junction at the same speed?

Got to stop watching Zucker films. :)

Lights tend to be installed on junctions for specific reasons - either because they're busy, or are particulraly hazardous. But, yes, you're right, going through a junction at the 60mph limit isn't particularly safe, unless you have enough visibility to see there's no risk in doing so.

I _always_ lift off around junctions, because you just never know what might happen.

roundabouts at

true, but if it's possible to do it when several cars are going at the same speed then it's just as safe at the same time danger is only the risk of something bad happening, so how would you describe "safe"?

Precisely because he hit a kid !

Clearly speeding when kids are around to hit, is plenty worse than speeding on a deserted country lane !

So much danger infact, that nothing whatsoever happened ! :)

If it's safe to do so, then yes, of course. It's trivially obvious that you shouldn't travel at a speed that is faster than would allow you to stop in the distance you can see to be safe, and this applies to junctions too, but to make a blanket statement that to drive through _any_ junction at 60 is irresponsible, is both naive and patronising. Clearly the OP has given consideration to the specific situation, and has judged it to be safe to travel at 60. Since you are making generalisations, it appears that you don't know the specific situation he is talking about, so you really have no basis for your criticism.

But they were both doing axactly the same thing, with exactly the same number of kids about in exactly the same place. Stop trying to twist it. Why should one be punished more?

So he was lucky. If someone came down your road at 90mph i suppose you would just find them and shake their hand for not hitting anyone/anything?

Because he hit a kid, and killed him !

concentration'.

No, I just wouldn't really care. How other people drive is totally upto them, as long as they're fully prepared to accept the consequences if something bad happens. I regularly speed on open roads - sometimes by a large margin.

I can't be arsed with this discussion anymore - I've made my views perfectly clear :)