Road Traffic Offences involving Bad Driving Consultation

The Road Safety Bill contained no provision to deal with the inadequacy of the current law in relation to road death and injury. On 3rd February 2005, the long-awaited Report commissioned from Professor Halliday was launched. This Report, 'Review of Road Traffic Offences involving Bad Driving' is available for public consultation and we urge you to respond.
Every response is important!

The Report is difficult to summarise, but the main recommendations are

1. A new charge of Causing Death by Careless Driving with a maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment.

2. Alternative statutory charges, such as Causing Death by Dangerous Driving or Dangerous Driving, etc., may be charged in the rare cases of prosecutions for Manslaughter following a road death.

3. There is no specific charge in relation to serious injury but the courts are to be required to take injuries into account in sentencing for Careless or Dangerous Driving.

4. Anyone not qualified to drive, or disqualified, who is involved as a driver in a fatal collision, should be guilty of a new offence carrying a maximum penalty of up to 5 years.

RoadPeace believes that the proper charge following a road death is a Manslaughter charge (Vehicular/Motor Manslaughter) - a common law charge and not a separate traffic charge.

We think that this should be our aim, but that the present proposal of Causing Death by Careless Driving may have to be accepted as a step towards our aim. It offers a solution to some of our concerns - by addressing the death in the charge and by taking the offence out of the Magistrates Courts, and by offering a prison sentence instead of a fine as a maximum.

The possibility of an alternative charge to manslaughter may mean that the manslaughter charge will be brought more often and this will give better information about the attitude of the courts to a manslaughter charge and will pave the way for the future. One of the main arguments cited against a manslaughter charge is that juries would not convict drivers of manslaughter.

We think that we should be, in the long term, consistent with the rest of Europe, where a road death is addressed by a general homicide charge: Manslaughter in France, Reckless Killing in Germany, for example. We do, however, feel that the Government's proposed new charge has a good chance of becoming law and that we must be realistic and support this, taking one step at a time, rather than risk leaving the law as it is.

We would also propose a separate offence to cover injury on the roads, we do not think it is acceptable to merely ask the courts to take injury into account in the case of a charge of Careless or Dangerous Driving. There are over 30,000 serious injuries per year on the roads and we know that this is an underestimate There is no justification in not having a specific offence to recognise and address this.
The Government proposal would also mean that there was no possibility of a prison sentence for even the most serious injury caused by careless driving.

The new offence in relation to disqualified or unqualified drivers shows an intention to tackle this growing problem but if the driver was not responsible for the death, it seems wrong, in principle, to punish him more severely, simply for being there. Some people may, however, feel strongly that if he had complied with the law, he would not have been there at all. We do not offer a suggested response.

There are a great many other proposals and questions in the consultation, please obtain a copy from the Internet or through your MP.

Even if you do not have time to consider the consultation in detail, please write to Lyndsay Gittus at Fry Building, 2ND Floor, 2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF BY Friday 6 May, making the following points:

Regarding death and injury

i) The charge 'Driving without Due Care and Attention' currently applied in cases involving road death and injury is wholly inappropriate to address a death or serous injury and must be replaced.

ii) The proper charge following a road death is a manslaughter charge (manslaughter means involuntary killing), but the proposed charge of Causing Death by Careless Driving would address the death in the charge and give the Crown Court the option of a custodial sentence and is welcomed as a much needed improvement to the current law.

iii) A specific charge is needed to cover Causing Serious Injury by Driving. There must be the option of a custodial sentence available to the Courts.

Regarding bad driving and driving standards

i) driving standards ought to be set against the minimum standards required by the driving test - therefore Section 38 of Road Traffic Act 1988 should be amended to give the Highway Code the same statutory footing as other codes, such as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act

ii) To allow the Magistrates Courts a wider range of sentencing options to reflect degrees of bad driving - the penalty for Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 should be amended, from Level 4 - to Level 5.

RoadPeace has always believed that a proper legal response to death and injury caused as the result of committing driving offences, is the key to changing society's complacency towards road death and injury and reducing the danger on our roads.

Minimum driving standards and the deterrent effect of higher penalties for bad driving would also greatly contribute to reducing road danger.

Please try to find the time to write in to the consultation.