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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4332140.stm


Doesn't make it clear whether the phone was hand-held or not, although presumably it was as he was charged with using it.

Any thoughts as to whether or not this was a reasonable sentence?

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

this sentence is ridiculously lenient in comparison to the kid that got banged up for 5 years for a crash that he didn't even cause.

Whilst it might sound harsh on the victim's family, I think the sentencing was probably pretty fair.

There's a whole world of difference between careless and reckless, and I think it is correct that sentencing takes this distinction into account. Presumably it was established that his standard of driving wasn't reckless, so in many ways he was just desperately unlucky that his carelessness led to such an horrific outcome.

There is a tendency to "bay for blood" whenever an accident leads to a fatality, but I doubt it yields much benefit. Indeed, if we punish people out of all proportion to their level of culpability, based mainly on what the Americans would call "happenstance", then we tend to mask the real lessons that might be learned.

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yes and reckless is talking on a mobile while driving knowing full well that it will reduce your field of vision and compromise your reactions times more than drinking several pints of beer.

That's slightly missing the point.

We don't know the circumstances. If his actions were reckless then presumably he would have been up for that and sentenced accordingly. But he was not, from which we ought to infer that those who did hear the full circumstances did not deem his actions to be reckless, but merely careless.

Looking back at the article, it doesn't actually say he was on the 'phone at the time. What if he'd just made a call, hung up, then coincidentally crashed a minute later? In the course of investigating the fatal accident the phone usage got picked up and a prosecution brought, though it had nothing to do with the accident. Would that still be reckless?

I'm not saying that is the case, just that we shouldn't jump to conclusions based on a partial report. There could be any number of things we don't know about.

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We can only use the cause death by careless if the driver was under the influence of drink or drugs. It is a bit of an anomaly i and can be a feature of agravating in appropriate cases of section 1 -of the RTA 1988 Act but will always feature in the definition of section 3A in which you have to prove the driving was careless and well below standar, a death has occurred and the driver was above the prescribed limit. No further charge of drink driving is considered as this features within this offence..

With regard to the article - call allegedly ended before the crash but we still do not know if he was holding the phone or not at the time of the incident. The mobile phone charge would have been a separate charge in its own right as would the careless charge. Hence the two gulity pleas as the phone records would show that he made a call whilst driving - and these records would show whether or not the collision occurred during the call or after the call. We used to include using hand held phone whilst driving at speed under a careless charge - but we can now charge separately.

As for the careless charge? He hit the driver head on and perhaps the driving did not qualify as "dangerous" as for a ddangerous to be proven - we have to prove the standard was way, way , way below that expected of a competent driver - and the appaliing driving standard would have to be persistent. Other criterai looked at when deciding a dangerous drive charge are: racing, persistent aggression, disregard of traffic lights and other rules, OTT and very deliberate excess speeding, speeds inappropriate to traffic conditions ( and this perversely could include too slow , daft and aggressive overtakes....

Careless stands a better chance of conviction and CPS tend to go for an easier case - and careless includes overtaking on inside, tripping a red light, taligating, emerging from a side road into another car of pedestrian or cyclist, reading a paper or map, nodding off and even driving with eithr arm or leg encased in plaster (and we have come across this and I did have to do someone for this once - he was potentially lethal )

Should he have gone to prison? He pleaded guilty and was sentenced presumably per statute guidelines in line with the acknowledging the guilty plea, remorse, his own injuries and perhaps the speed and circumstances were also taken into account. Seems lenient but ...guy was driving a van so he's lost his job. He has a high fine and when the ban is lifted - his insurance premium will probably deter driving. So perhaps not as lenient as it appears at first reading.

But the law is black and white and the bereaved see the situation in full raw emotional colour: no prison sentence would be enough for some. The driver was also hurt and fact that he requires counselling as well shows remorse and trauma and people do forget that the person who causes the accident also faces the same life sentence of living with causing a death. Perhaps the court also took this into account when deciding from the statutory list of sentences for this offence. There is a maximum prison term and whether or not the maxumum is imposed is up to the judge.

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As IG has said, the offence and sentencing does seem appropriate for what can be proved.

I do remember an RTC about 4 years ago now where a transit van drove through a village at a totally inappropriate speed and was met with a bus coming the other way round a bend in the main road. He was being followed by his cousin in an Escort van. His mobile wouldn't stop ringing on our arrival at scene. When I asked the cousin if the Transit driver (who was touch and go) had someone who needed contacting, he said she knows already, he was on the phone to her when it happened.
When it got round to taking statements his story changed a little, and the telephone call between driver and wife had finished sometime before the accident.
The wife would not provide a statement.
I believe a few fatals in our area could be attributed to use of mobile, proving it is a different question.

As far as sentencing structure for fatalities is concerned, I'd like to see a range of standards of driving from 1 being a bit careless to 50 being very dangerous.
There could also be a series of aggravating factors, illegal acts which have compounded the driving deficiency, such as use of hand held mobile, reading a map, eating an apple, being disqualified, knowingly uninsured, driving other than in accordance with licence, twoc, drunk, drugged, con & use offences, etc etc.
These aggravating factors could also have a range of values depending on their seriousness, eg a defective tyre could have a factor 1 to 3 depending on how bad it was, and how much it would have affected the accident given the weather etc. Disqual driving could be in the range 5 to 10, uninsured, 2 to 5 etc etc.
These aggravating 'factors' could be factored with the deficient driving value, giving a total offence figure.

Eg if someone's driving carelessness is a 5, they are uninsured, because they know their previous driving record would make insurance prohibitively expensive, therefore 5 for that. they also had slightly defective brakes, and no mot, so another 2 for that.
These defects could then be multiplied together, not simply added, so that the offece total figure in this case would be 50.

There would also be a predecided figure, perhaps 25, above which imprisonment would be considered.

No doubt someone will be able to blow holes in the figures Ive given as examples, but the point is that we should be able to penalise the circumstances of the whole event as one group of factors, rather than consider them separately.

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Surely it would make sense for officers investigating fatacs to check all the vehicle occupants for possession of mobile phones as a matter of course, and then to check via the service providers records to see whether the line was active at the time of the accident.

I can see there would be anomalies where drivers could get off either through fudging the time of the accident slightly, or perhaps by being "off-line" composing a text message at the time, but surely this level of investigation would at least give a reasonably accurate baseline figure as to the level of mobile phone involvement in serious crashes.

Mobile phones are clearly an issue of our time, but I worry that they may be getting a disproportionate degree of the blame, when we should in truth be looking to make changes elsewhere.

Or I may be completely wrong. Either way, we can always make better decisions when we are armed with better facts.

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It's not illegal for your passenger to make a phone call when on the move!

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hands-free has been shown to be just as dangerous. They should just ban all in-car phones but the government beancounters have worked out that the potential economic loss outweighs the potential loss from a few fatalities. No doubt the same reason exists for not making driving standards higher. Think of all the industries that would suffer if that actually happened.

Surely you would agree that the outcome for the offender in this case is grotesquely at odds with that in the case of the youngster who (almost certainly because of dreadful legal advice) pleaded guilty to DD in this case.

In the former case, the carelessness resulted in the direct involvement of the vehicle being driven in a serious crash that killed another person who was entirely 'innocent' (uninvolved). The crash was a predictable result of the driving behaviour (whether or not it was caused by or contributed to by use of a mobile phone).

In the latter case, although the driving behaviour was irresponsible and foolish, the behaviour was not, imo, the proximate cause of the crash which killed the driver of the other vehicle, who was himself particpating in the same irresponsible and foolish behaviour.

Your sentencing structure idea is a good one, if a bit complicated. However, I think that the use of a mobile phone at the time of an accident, if proved, should be an aggravating factor regardless of whether handheld or handsfree. IMO, the distinction between handheld and handsfree is not valid in road safety terms. Careful use of a handheld phone is not a threat to safety any more than careful operation of the CD player; and careless use of a handsfree phone can be as dangerous as drink driving.

I would say that the sentencing in the case described in this thread sounds about right. The other one was a complete travesty, and also sets a very worrying precedent but I certainly don't see that "mistake" as being a justification for increasing the sentencing in other cases to bring them into line!


I agree. Basically I think the way the mobile phone legislation has been taken is fundamentally wrong, and that it was better before.

At the end of the day, one pretty good acid test as to whether mobile phone usage was dangerous would be the very fact that you were involved in an accident whilst using one! Picking up on my previous suggestion, I was of course meaning "drivers" rather than occupants, and my intention was that handsfree phones would come under the same investigation. If it could be proved that there was a similar degree of fatac association with handsfree as for handheld phones then that might well be a good justification for getting the current laws put right.

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How deos using a hands-free mobile affect your field of vision any more than talking to a passenger?

What evidence do you have that a mobile phone is, for the average driver, more dangerous than driving over the limit?

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there have been numerous studies that show just that - ie the reaction times of those on the phone are worse than those who've had a few drinks. The main reason being that while on a phone you are forced to concentrate on the conversation a whole lot more than while chatting to a passenger. It doesn't matter whether you're holding the phone or not.
Of course if you're one of the muppets that has to look at a passenger in order to talk to them it may well be a different story.

No - I didn't mean to suggest that. However, in the range of "seriousness" of careless driving offences, driving behaviour that results in the death of a totally innocent third party ** must fall at or close to the "most serious" end.

** I think one can draw a distinction here between different types of crashes and I go back to the proposition that liability of both (all) drivers involved in a crash can be assessed independently, with the result that responsibility for the crash (as opposed to legal liability) can be seen to be the sum of all drivers' respective contributions to the crash (or failure to avoid it), which may therefore exceed 100%.

If, on the facts of a particular case, there was no action reasonably available to the 'innocent' party to avoid the crash, there is nothing to mitigate the 'responsible' driver's blameworthiness. However, if the 'innocent' party could (and a reasonably competent and careful driver would) have taken action which would have avoided the crash or reduced its severity, then, it seems to me, the responsible driver's blameworthiness is mitigated by the failure of the innocent driver to take appropriate action.

This distinction could be reflected in sentencing.



I agree - but an outright prohibition on mobile phone use would be practicably unenforceable therefore pointless.

and here is the first link to a study that I found. I'm sure a quick google will find a whole lot more.


it may be unenforceable but if you know that causing an accident while using one means your insurance will be invalid and you'll be banged up then it may be self policing.

It's a good idea - but I think the lawyers would make a lot of money defending their way around it. Burden of proof is one big headache - to get DD considered if appropriate can be pushing it as they tend to go for a lesser charge to guarantee a result as "easier to prove" if the person pleads "not guilty"

This is why the other case mentioned does seem a rough justice situation as presented so far.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Would you believe that in our handbook it does list talking to a passenger in a way which causes more than momentary inattention.

Never be able to prove it though...


Where the car has more than one occupant - again difficult to prove who was on the phone. Are some tests we can do - but still difficult and thus outright ban could not be enforced as Obs says.



Number of accidents where the hands held phone appeared as prime and strong contributory cause in investigation - plus a TRL study and some Uni studies....

As for the hands free...think my cousin Wildy summed it up as it is in her case: her L1 (as she calls it) is German. She has to concentrate on the conversaion harder as sound quality in some areas may be poor and of course - one gets engaged in the conversation as well and the relaxed concentration of reading the road ahead becomes fully focused on the "office conversation" in the car. These hands free in-car calls should really be short ETA type calls and anything more involved should wait until a stop or reaching destination.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

To me the new laws regarding mobile phone use and the hands-free craze has made the problem worse, not better. Before we had the kits fitted I was expected - yes expected to answer the phone, not doing so wasn't an option if I harboured any hopes of promotion - and unless your in that postion it's too easy to say "you shouldn't have had to". However, at least the calls were short. They then kitted us out with hands free kits and the calls started to get longer, with a lot of information being requested from me because I was 'safe' on hands free. Personally, I found it much more difficult to drive safely having a 10mins hands-free conversation then a quick 30 second call holding the phone.

I'm not saying either way is particularly safe, and we certanily need to takle the employers who put pressure on employees to make their car an extenstion of their office, but alas mobile are here to stay. We need to get rid the current laws but with stiff penalties if someones driving is suffering because of the use of a mobile, be it hands-free or not.

My company has a policy of no mobile phone use while driving, and the cheap handsets that they provide have no mechanism through which they can be used hands free.

I fully agree with this policy, although I can see that in very rare occurrences a driver will need to be contacted to be told that the appointment has been cancelled. To work around this we have voice mail, and are expected to ignore the phone while driving and check for messages during breaks.