Rank: Super forum user 
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The latest Connect bulletin includes an article on road safety law - Are your colleagues safe on the road? A welcome reminder of an area of both business and life generally that doesn't receive the attention it should
Whilst the proposed increase in penalties for dangerous driving and related offences would go some way to address the imbalance in legal sanctions, I don't think we are going to see any real progress until killing someone with a vehicle is treated in the same way as killing someone in another way. A few years ago, I had a friend killed by a young driver who fell asleep at the wheel after drinking all night. The driver went to jail for a grand total of 2 years. Two years for killing someone? What a joke.
There seems to be a long-standing attitude that driving offences that result in death or injury are somehow a lesser offence that can be punished with derisory sentences and bans/penalty points. What is the difference between getting drunk and driving a car, and hitting and killing someone as a result, and putting a gun to someone's head and pulling the trigger?
Of course, by no means are all such offences committed by drunk people, which is surely a demonstration of the poor standard of driving these days, and the bad attitude of too many drivers.
The Americans have an offence of vehicular homicide; isn't it time we got real in this country and introduced something similar?
Discuss.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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No discussion - get behind the wheel of a car intoxicated, too tired, using a phone hands on, without a licence, without insurance in my opinion is attempted murder. The person committing the act had a choice - the person they kill or maime in consequence does not. Manslaughter indicates no malice or forethought - I will concur there is unlikley to be malice toward the victim but there was a concious decision aka forethought that resulted in the perpetrator being behind the wheel.
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Rank: Super forum user
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No discussion - get behind the wheel of a car intoxicated, too tired, using a phone hands on, without a licence, without insurance in my opinion is attempted murder. The person committing the act had a choice - the person they kill or maime in consequence does not. Manslaughter indicates no malice or forethought - I will concur there is unlikley to be malice toward the victim but there was a concious decision aka forethought that resulted in the perpetrator being behind the wheel.
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Rank: Super forum user
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A highly emotive topic. Perhaps the OP is missing the point that it also makes. There already offences to suit the circumstances. That the court chose to impose a sentnce that did not seem to satisfy the OP is rather irrelevant in that there are numerous traditional manslaughter convictions where a minimal prison time was imposed. That a driver may be charged with one offence or another does not mean their prison time will automatically de/increase.
Staying on the subject is the far more precarious offence of causing death by careless driving (S3A RTA'88). If I pull out of a junction and unfortunately strike another vehicle causing minor damage with the front of my car (Simplied example) it is doubtful that the police would be called and certainly unlikely for any action to be taken, albeit, my driving would fall below that of a careful and competent driver (Due care threshold) Same sceanrio (Simplified) and this time the other car driver sustains injuries which become fatal (typically due to complications). My carelessness was exactly the same and the due care threshold has still failed. The point is that in the first example, police, if contacted would tell you to exchange names and addresses etc. In the later I would expect a prosecution, conviction and probably prison sentence.
The real eye opener is that so few drivers realise how high the due care threshold is when dealing with damage only incidents and then becomes so low where injury is involved.
The penalty is entirely down to the court. Almost unheard of to have a death by dang driving receive half let alone the maximum penalty.
I see no benefit of a change to the law, perhaps the penalty needs a further review!
Edited by user 25 March 2019 22:45:43(UTC)
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I have to agree with Biker, not withstanding Acorns' point to drive under the influence is to willingly put the lives of others at risk. Its not just the sentencing though. I frequently read about people driving at ridiculous speeds on urban roads, killing somebody and getting a 4 year ban. There's often alcohol or substance abuse mixed in. So why a 4 (or five or six or whatever) ban? Why are they ever allowed behind the wheel again? Bans for life, that's what I'd like to see in the worst cases,
John
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Rank: Super forum user
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I think that this is down to familiarity: most people drive and everybody has the occasional lapse and think “Ooh that could have been bad!” and then they forgot about it. If you are involved in something that is not familiar to the general public and get involved in fatality then the full weight of the law comes down on you, be it medical practitioner who gives the wrong drug or Hunter pilot crashing your plane or a policeman discharging a firearm. In those cases you hear of manslaughter charges but never for terrible driving (just the lesser offence of Death by Dangerous Driving). Of course far more deaths are caused by RTA than by the other means mentioned above but they rarely make the headlines and society seems to accept them with shrug … bit like Health and Safety 50 years ago.
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Rank: Forum user
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Originally Posted by: biker1  What is the difference between getting drunk and driving a car, and hitting and killing someone as a result, and putting a gun to someone's head and pulling the trigger?
In short, intent.
Personally I abhor drunk driving and if driving and will not drink alcohol at all if I will be driving the same day or early the next day. But - However despicably irresponsible it is and however tragic the results of drink driving it is manslaughter not murder unless it is part of a wider plan to deprive someone of their life (perhaps someone fully intends to crash in order to kill but gets drunk to give themselves the nerve to do so). By all means a harsher penalty for such offences but lets not muddy the water between those who deliberately set out to kill and those who kill through grave irresponsibility. This may be an unpopular argument but Murder is black and white, you either set out to kill someone deliberately or you don't. Manslaughter is a grey scale, at one end you have the drunk speeding lunatic, at the other you have the example given of someone who pulls out from a junction in a moment of inattention. These people should be punished - and in a lot of cases punished harshly, but they are not murderers.
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Rank: Forum user
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personally i am in agrrement with the comments above. the chegre should refllect the circumstances. repeat offenders who kill while drunk or on drugs should face manslaugbter charges as they have not learned from earlier run ins with the police. i do object though to coursts letting off drink drivers because they may lose their job if banned. the driver should have thought of that efore they drank.
mike
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