"Other guidelines recommend a tariff of up to three years' prison "where death follows careless driving", with "higher sentences where there is a combination of aggravating factors", plus a maximum of two years "where death results from an offence involving driving unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured"

- wtf? so no insurance etc gets you sod all? for me hammer the uninsured. they are dangerous and will screw you up if you have a collision with them.

driving under the influence is an odd one. i dont (couldnt live with myself if i hit someone whilst high, plus you will never know if it would have happened or not otherwise) but the mrs smokes pot and drives. she drives much slower and is generally a better driver than when straight. also if fighter pilots can fly supersonic jet planes on speed (army issue) then why cant we? drugs like ephedrine, speed and coke all enhance your reactions! they are banned in sports events for a reason...

also - you may cause death by being 'high' but was it actually your fault? seems harsh if you have a collision caused by someone else then they find you are high and you get 14 years!

generally a good rule as people should be straight whilst driving - maybe also a rule for people like my mum who thinks she needs to speak with her hands even when driving (scary shit hehe)

Having had a quick scan of the comments on the BBC's version of this article (twat-o-tron overload) I expect to see a flood of comments along the lines of "why can't they give longer sentences to <insert serious crime>; only the other day a bloke murdered five kiddies and got off with community service!!!!!".

So basically, whenever an accident occurs, the parents will come on TV, do their sobbing, and to appease them you'll do a dangerous driving conviction for every accident.

And the chance of conviction will be the difference between how plausible a victim is and how plausible a bad guy the suspect is. Regardless of the details of the case.

Let me guess, there was something on TV and the politicians felt it necessary to rush out some new law to ride that PR wave? Was that it? Or perhaps something in the papers?

See title.

...highly interpretive law they can use to kick you when you're down.

Its either murder, manslaughter or an accident. Stop trying to blur the very well defined lines, this an attempt to gain yet more power over the legal system.

"So we can't get him on manslaughter, because it's looking like it was an accident. Don't worry though, we can still get him..."

"Getting behind the wheel when pissed should be classed as attempted murder."

That does have a neat logic to it. Under these guidelines someone who glances at their phone to see who's calling and then mows down an old lady crossing the street will be done for causing death by careless driving and could go down for three years. Someone who glances down at their phone and is spotted by a police officer but causes no accident is liable to an on the spot fine of £60 and three points on their license - yet both people have done exactly the same thing. That was why so many people avoided jail in cases of careless driving (as opposed to dangerous driving or driving under the influence, which are more serious) because the law used to be based on punishing the deed. Now it's based on punishing the consequences of that deed, which is probably less 'just' but satisfies our vengeance culture. The flipside would be to punish every careless driver with prison - but then that's probably unworkable, even in this prison happy country.

IIRC a few years ago there was a was big story on the local news that started something like: "Woman's husband killed by drink driver but she has to pay for it". Turned out that although the woman's husband was killed in a car crash, and the other driver was drunk the accident had been entirely her husband's fault (he pulled out without looking, the drunk wasn't even speeding). The pay bit was she lost her no-claims and excess.

The drunk driver was only charged with drink driving (and banned of course) and nothing else.

Which implies at least that in order to cause death by <insert death causing medium here> you have to actually cause the death and not just be an incidental part of it.

Regarding the potted driving I think the problems are (1) she drives slower. That is going to piss a lot of people off and possibly cause more accidents and (2) her reactions also will be slower, so although she may well be taking more initial care and reducing her speed somewhat she will not be as equipped to deal with surprises as a non druggy driver.

Is this 2 laws a day now? I'm wonder here, it looks like they get up at 5am, do a breakfast meeting, read the papers, knock up a law before breakfast, publish it by noon and have the interview points for the evening news.... regrets follow much later..

And that insurance thing is a joke, there's no causal link between not having insurance and having accidents. There may be a correlation, but then so is driving a red car, or having spiky hair, being old. Yeh driving while old could get an extra 2 year penalty....

So what have we run out of causality and now being tough on correlations?

Or are they making the laws *before* the morning coffee kicks in now? I guess if I watch British TV tonight, I can predict what tomorrows laws will be? Not even a pretense of leadership, just do whatever the morning papers tell you to do?

Its that kind of attitude that people used to have for drink drivers.

"Ive only had three pints. It makes me play pool better so I can drive" etc etc and other such bullshit.

You've had too much to drink (pretty much any), you smoked too much pot (no matter how much), the same to me. Youre both arseholes who should not be driving while in that state.

To claim that just cos your mrs drives slower and thats OK is just frankly mental. If she got caught Id hope the book got thrown at her. It doesnt matter if shes had an "accident" cos shes an accident waiting to happen if shes driving while stoned.

No excuses.

I've yet to see a smoker who could light up while concentrating on anything else. Hell, I had to shout at one to hit the brakes while he was lighting up and his car survived for that reason.

It's not the smoking, it's the lighting. You're playing with fire. I never got used to my dad using matches to light a cigarette while driving. It takes both hands and an amount of coordination and concentration that not everyone possesses and might lead to dire consequences when they're found lacking. It's also difficult to use your fag hand for anything other than steering or putting your ciggy in your mouth.

For great swathes of the country cars are more of a necessity.

'Road traffic collision' because 'accident' implies that no-one is at fault.

Anyone see '5th gear' where they tested a dope smokers driving when straight and stoned, and got identical results, except the smoker 'felt' like he was driving faster when stoned, so took more care?

@Lee 'My reactions are better!' Yea, drink drivers chant that mantra too.

@Martin (Smoking cigs when driving) Several years ago my Ex ran a dog over after the end fell off her cig into her lap. (Fortunately nothing worse than a broken leg, and she still cried a few times) She mounted the grass verge as it ran out of a gate.

If a smoker can't go that long without one, they have a problem that should discount them from driving anyway.

Just really, really high.

If you can't find an open piece of road or traffic jam/lights to light up in (and muscle memory can't tell you where you're fags and lighter are) then you should just bloody wait. I can't remember the number of times I've not even remembered lighting up until I remember wanting a smoke and realising I've already got one.

If you have had a few and get into an accident, because the body is more relaxed your chances of suffering physical harm is reduced.

So, when a person gets into an accident suffering physical harm when sober, they should be allowed to sue the socks off those who called for drink driving to be made illegal. Some people maybe here today had they been drunk at the time of the accident.

It is a funny old world, but you would have thought by now, we would have made cars that were super cheap, had built-in sensors to avoid collision, and were made primarily of foam. If that was in place, then I wouldn't be surprised if you had to have a few drinks or some relaxant to further reduce the chance of injury.

We can do a hell of a lot more than stopping drink driving to make the roads a safer place, but for some reason we seem to think that is the major cause, when in truth it is probably due more to bad luck, the fact a car is made of a material that can kill, and just lousy driving.

What about them dangerous dogs, why I sure hope they have some new law by tomorrow evenings news on dangerous dogs.... ;)

I saw on telly a poor woman who'd been attacked by a dangerous dog, the dogs owner, well, maybe if he had compulsary dog attack insurance or something that would fix it!

they need proof now?

one person in a car.. guilty obviously, thats how it works now innit?

you own a car you must be guilty unless you prove otherwise.

of course the standard of said proof will be very high, afterall we don't want people getting ideas about not pleading guilty do we...

sigh.

As stated before, some politician trying to look like the're actually doing something. One law against careless driving, one law for carelessely firing a gun, one law for carelessely swinging an axe, maybe a law for carelessely dropping a nuclear warhead? When you get your license, you're told that your 1.5 tons pile of sharp metal is a death machine. If you use it carelessely, it's manslaughter (or even murder, I've heard that a guy purposedly ran over a nasty lazy pinko demonstrator a couple years ago). No need for a shiny new law, just have tribunals enforce existing ones.

So... just to catch 'em all, we should make a new law about capital crimes for carelessly making new laws at the drop of a hat?

We might catch Mr. Brown-is-the-color-of-my-pants with his trousers down and send him to a place where pants might be optional!

Clearly the UK government is soft on crime! Over here in the US, we know how to deal with people who have so-called "accidents", like this young woman who dozed off at the wheel and ran into some kids wandering around on a motorway -

http://www.courttv.com/trials/williams/background.html

What they don't tell you in the linked article is that the jury found her *not guilty* on all charges related to the actual accident, and her sentence (48 years) was based on her admission that she smoked a joint occasionally.

@ "When are they going to do something about people who smoke cigarettes while driving?" - its an

interesting one this. i smoke. i have crashed my car due to the end falling off and almost

setting me alight! - this is why i dont smoke rolling tobacco any more - btw - no injuries as i

managed to hit my bosses car in the car park - doh!

but then again - lets ban women drivers as they cant not look you in the face whilst driving and

talking, lets ban the radio as you have to bend down to turn the station/volume, lets ban loud

music as you cant hear the sirens of the police etc, lets ban phones altogether as hands free

often means still pressing plenty of buttons to do shit... where do you end? remember the smokers

have been massively funding society for years - what is it now - 2000% tax on them?

on to cycling - can we see laws against these twats who dont know how to use the road

(undertaking, ignoring lights, swapping lanes willy-nilly)

@ "Regarding the potted driving I think the problems are (1) she drives slower. That is going to piss a lot of people off and possibly cause more accidents and (2) her reactions also will be slower, so although she may well be taking more initial care and reducing her speed somewhat she will not be as equipped to deal with surprises as a non druggy driver." - i fully agree mate - as i say i dont smoke or drink and drive as i know im impared... by drive slower i mean she doesnt speed everywhere! you know what 20 something women are like - little nigel mansells (without the tache!)

Coming from everyone who is defending their abilities to smoke / drink / get hi, whilst driving. Check out the research, it is a FACT that the human brain can do two or sometimes more things at once BUT it just spreads out the available processing power and does them all less well. This is from scientific research over the the last two years. If you are more relaxed, you are not concentrating, if you are speeding, you have a shorter attention span and are still not concentrating. For the guy who said he concentrates more it should read `is trying harder´ because his abilities are impaired. Any thing you do that is in addition to the task in hand will compromise the initial task. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Just try being honest with your selves, and be empirical when assessing abilities, subjective opinions are meaningless and cloud the issue.

Before any one tells me to get off my high horse, I used to drive drunk, stoned and high at various times in the sixties and seventies, sometimes all three at once . It is something to be ashamed of not proud about, it's just luck that I never killed or hurt anyone including myself.

It is very hard to draw up fair laws to deal with accidents that are "caused" by factors like someone having drunk alcohol, smoked pot, using a phone, reaching for a mint, tuning the radio, trying to read road signs, being short of sleep, or just having a sexual fantasy.

Take the bloke who got a hefty prison sentence because he reached for a mint while driving alone on a motorway. While his attention was distracted (probably a second or two) he swerved, and eventually hit another vehicle and caused a crash in which deaths occurred. The court took the view that his inattention caused the crash, and the crash caused the deaths, so his attempt to get another mint caused the deaths. In short, manslaughter or whatever. But thousands of people do similar things every day without causing accidents (or not so obviously and undeniably) and they do not get punished at all - although what they did was exactly as culpable. No more and no less. Indeed, if the man in question had simply chosen not to mention the mint and his momentary distraction, he would almost certainly have got off without a prison sentence - perhaps without any punishment, or even blame, at all. He could simply have said "I dunno what happened - one moment I was driving along, then the car suddenly swerved..."

Or take alcohol. Once an issue reaches the public eye, and therefore the political limelight, there is an unfortunate tendency for it to blot out everything else - including common sense. A blanket ban on alcohol would be neither practicable nor reasonable. I recall an episode of "The Bill" in which inspector Gina has a few one night, drives to work the following day, is involved in an accident, and found to be driving under the influence. The factor that is always unmentioned in these discussions is "how long does it take alcohol to be completely metabolised" - because no one can say precisely. So a demand for "zero blood alcohol" means that, if you ever drink alcohol in any quantities, you must never drive a vehicle; and vice-versa. I don't think that would work, in a society where most of us (have to) drive, and most of us also like to have a few drinks.

Personally, I feel that while I prefer to be stone cold sober, I can manage a car safely after perhaps one pint of beer or a glass of wine. Two pints, a couple of glasses of wine, or any spirits, and I would call a taxi or whatever. This way, I think I stay within the law; but, more important, while my driving is certainly impaired, it is within acceptable limits.

How can I say any impairment is acceptable? Simply by comparison with other everyday impairments (some of them unavoidable), such as: having a cold, having had an argument, being angry with my boss, having had less than 8 hours of sleep every night for the last week, or even driving through a cloud of toxic fumes emitted by a bus or lorry. Or listening to the radio, or having two passengers conducting a conversation in the car while I'm driving. Or worrying about income tax, or my pension, or a leaking roof... Not to mention musing happily about some sexy film star, or thinking about my next holiday. Or, as has been demonstrated by experiment, being distracted by trying to make sense of a forest of road signs. The list is long.

Actually, I would like to see much more attention given to the role of sleep deprivation in causing accidents - and not only on the roads. Our culture actively conspires to deprive people of the sleep they need to be at their best, by forcing many of us to work 40-hours weeks (or longer), often with ever-lengthening commutes, and insidiously encouraging us to make the most of our leisure as well. Result: burning the candle at both ends. How many crashes are caused by drivers who never even realise they are falling asleep?

in response to some of the above.

1) any decent smoker can light up a cig without taking their eyes off the road... plus i have an automatic. plus, its not like smokers light up whilst going round bends etc. all the ones i know do it when stuck in traffic or on a long strgight road.

"As for mobile, until they put more cops on the roads instead of cameras it will not make any difference. I drive the M4 everyday to and from work and always see people on the motorway using thier mobile." - phones are an odd one. for example, while driving on a motorway (i.e. big fucking long straight road) how dangerous REALLY is it to use a phone? for me to answer my phone i have to put hand in pocket (2 secs) then press a button and put to ear (1 sec) - not exactly super dangerous is it? never taking eyes off road. but like everything in this world a few stupid people take the piss and everyone is banned. ive seen plenty of people texting whilst doing 50 in a residential area - its these idiots that fuck us all up!

@ "Clearly the UK government is soft on crime! Over here in the US, we know how to deal with people who have so-called "accidents", like this young woman who dozed off at the wheel and ran into some kids wandering around on a motorway" - yes, that why in the US ive seen LOADS of highway videos of officers letting off drunken drivers as you dont use breath testers everywhere (anywhere?). i can pass one of your sobriety tests easily when over the limit. and i can also do that test for pot smokers when stoned and pass (the one where you move finger in/out in front of nose). i have actually seen US officers put blatantly pissed drivers back in their cars and tell them to go home!

@ "i have been hit and badly injured by motorists TWICE whilst following the rules of the road and wearing Hi-Viz clothing!! " - is one of these rules that cyclists think they can undertake and wonder why you alomost hit them? as a driver you DONT NEED TO LOOK IN YOUR LEFT WING MIRROR! you dont even need one, but almost all cyclists think undertaking is ok. when i was a kid on a cycle i had no idea how bad cyclists are for car drivers.

@ "For anyone who may challenge me so, I would also welcome Cycling Licenses on a compulsory basis and it'd stop us real cyclists getting such a bad reputation" - i did one at school when i was about 8 - by 9 we couldnt give a shit and did what we wanted - but those were the BMX halcion days and i knew people who used to jump moving cars etc!

yes - there is bias towards cars on the road - i wonder if thats because motorists pay for the roads and cyclists pay fuck all?