Man Talks Sense

In all the words that are written on the subject of crime and punishment - an awful lot of it amounts to mumbo jumbo - not much makes common sense.

So it was with a sense of surprise and delight that I read some comments the other day - from the head of Scotland Yard's Road Death Investigation Unit - which cut through the usual verbal diarrhoea.

Detective Chief Inspector John Oldham callled for motorists who cause death on the roads - due to recklessness or negligence - to face much tougher sentences because the current penalties are too lenient.

Specifically, Mr Oldham suggests that road traffic and homicide laws should be merged - to create stronger penalties for reckless drivers found guilty of killing cyclists or pedestrians.

The police officer went on to say that the relatives of car-crash victims resented the very lenient sentences handed out now - when motorists have been shown to be  driving recklessly - arguing that such incidents are wrongly described as 'accidents' - when in fact they are the result of human decisions.

At the moment causing death by dangerous or careless driving - carries a maximum punishment of 14 years in prison - compared with up to life for manslaughter and an automatic life sentence for murder.

The maximum driving sentence is seldom used and - in any event - reckless drivers routinely serve only half their sentences after robbing some completely innocent person of their life.

DCI Oldham went on to explain that merging the current driving and homicide legislation would allow courts to deal with hard cases - where there is clear evidence of drivers behaving in a  reckless and negligent way.

For example by driving with a cup of tea in their hand - or after being on the road for 24 hours non stop. 

"In my particular world we get very upset by the word ‘accident’. For families there is no accident about it. An accident on the road is the result of the decisions people make." - said Mr Oldham.

How true - and it's high time that the punishment meted out to offenders - matched the gravity of their crime.