Road safety groups welcome new driving sentences
Author: Robin Brown
Published: 16 July 2008
Road safety charity Brake has welcomed new sentencing guidelines for drivers who cause death and serious injury when disqualified, as well as a new charge of causing death or serious injury through careless driving.
Two new offences have been introduced in the Road Safety Act 2006 - causing death by careless driving and causing death by driving while unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured.
The new guidelines set out penalties of up to two years in prison for drivers who kill when disqualified, uninsured or unlicensed; up to six months for failing to stop after an accident; and a guideline sentence of up to three years for careless driving.
Brake wants a new charge of causing serious injury through poor driving and believes that many cases that result in death will be classified as 'careless' driving, rather than 'dangerous' driving, and carry a lesser sentence. Causing death by dangerous driving carries a sentence of at least seven years.
Chief executive Mary Williams OBE said: "While we welcome the fact that more drivers who commit offences and kill will hopefully now be imprisoned, the law is still woefully lenient to tackle drivers who kill and maim through their own actions with catastrophic consequences for families."
But AA president, Edmund King, has called for more improvement in roads to improve safety, rather than penalising drivers.
King stressed the issue of drivers using mobile phones while driving, but called for more money to ploughed into improving blackspots.
Edmund King, AA president said: "[Speed] cameras are just one weapon to use in the road safety fight. Our problem with them is that quite often they are seen as the first and last resort.
"Sometimes, a simple junction improvement would be far more effective than the placing of a speed camera, which leaves the dangerous junction still in place."
See Also:
Is driving safely a matter of personal responsibility or should the government intervene? Two experts put forward their cases for a successful road safety policy.
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