Tim Worstall

Dangerous Driving

Good Grief!

Ken Macdonald, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said: "We have
strong feelings that public views have moved along at a pace in recent
years and we want to make sure our policies reflect public views."

Really? Law is now to be defined by the baying of the mob? Sheesh, why bother to have trials at all, there’s no smoke without fire you know! Included in this is the classification of the following as dangerous driving (if I’ve read the piece right) carrying a possible sentence of up to two years in jail.

The range of offences classed as serious enough to warrant imprisonment
include overtaking on the inside, jumping a red light, reading a map or
a newspaper, lighting a cigarette or turning to look at a passenger.

Lighting a cigarette?  Looking at a passenger? Two years chokey?

So, my stepdaughter, driving along at 30 miles an hour, her child in the booster seat, securely strapped in. The little one starts screaming over something or other, as children do, quick glance over the shoulder to make sure that it is indeed a tantrum, not a real emergency, bye bye, two years pokey?

Someone’s having a fucking laugh aren’t they?
 

In

8 responses

  1. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    Well, turning around to gaze into the eyes of a passenger behind you when you should be looking at where you are guiding your large metal killing machine could indeed be considered to be “driving without due care or attention”, couldn’t it? Now, either the law should stipulate exact lengths of time which it is and isn’t okay to turn and look at passengers for, which some might consider a bit absurd, or it can be left to the judgement of the police and courts, as it is now. If the law is being abused, I’m sure you and the Telegraph will be able to find lots of cases of mothers being prosecuted for glancing at babies. If not – outraged over nothing again, eh?
    Tim adds: Quite Jim. That’s why I’m complaining that it’s being upgraded from driving without due care and attention or careless driving to dangerous driving.

    Reply
  2. Jeff Avatar
    Jeff

    More to the point, with the introduction of the offence of “Causing death by careless driving”, the law is being moved away from the doctrine of sentencing based upon the culpability of the offender to that of sentencing based upon the outcome of the offence. Which is as absurd as the idea that if you do an armed robbery but only get away with a few quid you’ll get an ASBO, whereas, if you manage to haul a million quid away you’ll get twenty years.

    Reply
  3. john b Avatar
    john b

    This may be the worst-written article I’ve ever read in a ‘quality’ newspaper: it doesn’t make the distinction between “driving badly” and “causing death by driving badly”, and some of its facts are entirely made up (dangerous driving carries a six-month maximum; causing death by dangerous driving carries a 14-year maximum. No two years anywhere).
    I’d tend to agree with Jim that in practice, the law is unlikely to be used against Tim’s stepdaughter – but that really isn’t the point. It’s appalling, and one of the things I dislike most about the current government, to criminalise a wide spectrum of reasonable behaviour and then rely on the judgement of the police to determine who gets away with it and who gets prosecuted.

    Reply
  4. JayN Avatar
    JayN

    The problem I see is that they have failed to be able to answer accusations that if talking on a mobile phone is sufficiently distracting to warrant it being an offence why isn’t – looking away from the road, lighting a fag, eating a sandwich, etc. So instead of either a) giving up on the mobile thing or b) actually working to establish a useful definition their going to in effect criminalise anything else you can think of that might be distracting.
    I think the mobile law is unnecessary – it is clearly driving without due care and attention/ dangerous driving for which laws already existed. But it references a real problem as talking on a mobile combines a number of factors including distracting your attention, requiring concentration on something outside of your immediate environment and physically restricting the drivers ability to operate the vehicle where used without a handsfree kit. Most of the items listed above do not cover all of these things.
    The problem with poorly defined laws is less to do with Tim being caught and prosecuted by the police (they certainly don’t seem to be enforcing their shiny new mobile law), as the implications should a crash happen for insurance liabilities, civil claims, etc, where claims of negligence for low threshold distracting behaviour will have been legitimised by the law makers.

    Reply
  5. Jim Avatar
    Jim

    Tim,
    “That’s why I’m complaining that it’s being upgraded from driving without due care and attention or careless driving to dangerous driving.”
    Can’t not looking where you’re going be dangerous driving?
    John,
    It seems to me there’s already a lot of discretion employed in assessing either dangerous or careless driving, and this also seems somewhat unavoidable to me. I agree that leaving it up to arbitrary whim would be completely wrong, and that this government has hardly discouraged that in other cases, but I think if you don’t want to legislate proper behaviour to an absurd degree of precision some *discretion* which takes into account all the relevant circumstances is essential.

    Reply
  6. Little Black Sambo Avatar
    Little Black Sambo

    The general tendency is to frame the laws so that at any given moment we are all breaking some law or other, so that the police can get us on something whenever they like. This being in a permanent state of law-breaking induces general nervousness and docility in the presence of the official uniform. It is mild form of totalitarianism.

    Reply
  7. gene berman Avatar
    gene berman

    Sambo has it exactly right. But this example just seems another in a laundry-list of offenses of various types admitting of wide discretion by authorities in the UK. Sound like things are going the wrong way over there.

    Reply
  8. Toronto Traffic Tickets Avatar
    Toronto Traffic Tickets

    Are things ever going the right way when it comes to law and politics?

    Reply

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