Jail - Driving's Booby Prize

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.

Cynics Proved Right

The head of Sri Lanka's presidential task force, Tilak Ranavirajah, has criticised the country's relief effort. Five weeks after the tusnami disaster, corruption and incompetence has left 70% of affected Sri Lankan's without aid. This is without considering the areas under the control of the Tamil Tigers. Aid has been disappearing and relief camps have served rotten food.

I don't know how many people are surprised by this. It is a problem of over governed and bureaucratic societies. We can only give our money and hope some of it trickles down to the right people.

The cynics are proved right.

Government Abandons British

First, under the EU arrest warrant, the UK government has allowed other EU countries to arrest, remove from the UK, and then try, people alleged to have committed acts which are perfectly legal under UK law.

Now the UK government favours the introduction of an EU evidence warrant, which will allow other EU states forcibly to enter and search British homes and property seeking evidence with a view to the criminal prosecution of acts which could not be crimes in the UK.

In other words, to make legal the execution by a foreign power of search warrants which could not be legally obtained by the British government or justice system.

The British are being abandoned by their own government in their own country.

To be tried in a foreign state, where the law, procedures, and language differ from one's own, and foreigners may viewed with prejudice, is a serious matter. That is why extradition to a foreign state has traditionally been subject to many restrictions and safeguards. These safeguards have already been watered down by the Extradition Act 2003 which introduced the EU arrest warrant, extended extradition to a wide range of relatively trivial offences, and removed the principle of dual criminality, while reducing further the countries required to show a prima facie case.

By failing to uphold established principles of legal jurisdiction and extradition, the Crown is failing to protect its subjects from arbitrary and unjust interference in their lives. Traditional considerations of justice and good government are being sacrificed for administrative convenience and political ingratiation.

Who are the masters now?

Swastika Fetishists Force Women Into Prostitution

The EU wishes to ban the wearing and display of swastikas for "inappropriate purposes" reports the Telegraph. I guess Harry wasn't reverential enough?

Anyway, the impetus for this doubtless comes from the same freedom loving people that expect the unemployed to take jobs as prostitutes?

Who are we getting into bed with?