The government is proposing another populist measure - imposing prison sentences of up to 5 years for causing death by careless driving, which currently carries a maximum fine of £2,500. The alternative offence of causing death by dangerous driving already carries a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment.
The change is expected to create a need for 800 extra prison spaces.
There are currently around 3,500 deaths each year on the roads, half caused to car occupants, with around 40,000 serious injuries and 280,000 minor injuries in 240,000 accidents. Including accidents without injuries, there are a total of around 4 million incidents annually in the UK.
If the average sentence imposed for causing death by careless driving were 3 years, and people actually served half that, then we are looking at about 550 prison sentences a year. In other words imprisoning about a fifth of the drivers involved in accidents involving a fatality. Given that many drivers involved in a fatal accident will themselves have been killed, the imprisonment rate for survivors will probably be higher: around 25% - 30%, maybe more.
The reason more people are not prosecuted for causing death by dangerous driving is because juries are reluctant to convict for it. Mainly, I suspect, because they realise that 'accidents happen' and it could be them next time.
Lowering the bar will bring the courts into disrepute. Why should people be punished heavily for slight negligence? Road accidents do happen, lots of them, and it is a risk all road users take (and create). Mostly we get away with these accidents without injury. Only a tiny fraction of road accidents result in death - less than one in 1,000. And even taking into account only those accidents that result in injury, death is still relatively uncommon - little more than 1 in 100 injury accidents.
Banging people up for slight negligence means banging them up when they had no intention to cause harm. Not only that, but they will have had no conception that they were liable to cause any harm until the split second in which the accident happened.
What does it mean to say they were 'careless' - only that the accident was their fault, because they made a misjudgment. Given that someone has an accident that is their fault, it is purely a matter of chance whether they kill someone or not. And in general, it is unlikely that they do.
We can all expect to be involved in an accident every 7 or 8 years. A good half of those accidents will be our fault.
In the course of 50 years of driving we can expect to have 3 and a half accidents which are our fault - most people will have at least one in their driving career.
I don't think it is rational or just to penalise so heavily accidents which happen to have a very bad outcome. Only if someone were exceptionally reckless could it begin to be justified. But those are the people already being convicted of the more serious offence of causing death by dangerous driving.
Two wrongs do not make a right, and locking up those unfortunate enough accidentally to have caused someone's death, through some inadvertance - to which we are all from time to time prone, is wrong because it is arbitrary and capricious. It is like creating a booby prize for the lottery.
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2 comments:
Fine law in principle; the carelessness is punished not the outcome. In fact I can't and wouldn't argue with the principle.
It's the practice that offends. The fact that it is the outcome which dictates whether a prosecution will even occur - and therefore, what the sentence for that carelessness will be.
Prosecutions rarely occur unless there is a fatality rendering the principle that it is carelessness not effect that is punished.
If you intend to cause harm - if you have a criminal mental intent - you will be punished for that harm.
The point about carelessness is that there is no intention to cause harm, and the increase in risk undertaken by the careless person, if any, is minimal or inadvertent.
I see little benefit in criminalising carelessness, particularly if the penalties are made severe, because without criminal intent they are simply vindictive . It is much better if victims are compensated in the civil courts.
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