Safe Speed Forums

I could agree with the quote if I understand what the IAM are concerned with... and could address it.

1. The first offence and cause of the accident is DANGEROUS DRIVING. It is the same offence whether or not somebody is killed or injured.

2. The second offence is that a person has DIED or been SERIOUSLY INJURED at the hand of somebody driving a vehicle

The media reports the proposal as a new offence.
In fact it is a possibility of a higher sentence when the injury is severe enough that it could easily have been a fatal. I think the IAM are barking up the wrong tree because they misunderstand the reason for the change.

Even BRAKE do not understand the process.... IMHO.


Do they believe that drivers set out thinking "I'm driving dangerously, and could easily kill or injure somebody... but now that an injury could result in the same sentence as causing death, I'll ease up and drive more safely"

The driver that struck the vehicle containing Cerys Edwards was travelling at 70 mph in a 30 mph limit. Driven by a 19 year old youth in his mothers Range Rover.
He HAD to have known his driving was not only illegal, but dangerous on that stretch of road, but he failed to act.
The threat of an even tougher penalty will NOT DETER dangerous driving, it will only appease the victims families who presently feel that drivers are "getting off".

Malcolm is worried - rightly - that the new measures might end up being used against drivers who make an error, rather than set out to drive dangerously.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

There seems to be a group missing here, they did not listen to people already convicted of dangerous driving, or try to investigate the effects on them , IMO a very serious ommision.


Really?? As far as I can see the biggest priority when it comes to road safety is an obsessive compulsion to sucsessful prosecute folks caught travelling above the posted speed limit, and very little is being done to actually improve road safety, or even make attempts to understand what the real problems are.


What effect will it have on those convicted? is it likely to improve their behaviour more then other measures?

TBH I can't decide where I stand on this, I would certainly welcome people who drive dangerously and are likely to continue to do so being taken out of circulation. On the other hand I do feel it is likely that say merely travelling above the posted speed limit would be considerd as "wilful recklessness" even if the speed alone posed no special danger.

I don't think it will have any noticable effect on driving standards, I doubt very much it will affect anyone's behaviour, is there any evidence to suggest it will??

There does not seem to have been any serious study (please correct me and point me in the right direction if I'm wrong here) on the effects and behavior of those who have already been convicted of dangerous driving, so we don't know or indeed have any indication of how effective the present system is at improving road safety and improving behaviour. Without this knowledge making further laws with the expectation that they will improve driving standard or road safety, seems to me to be horribly ill founded.

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You only need two tools - WD40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape. :0)

well that's the whole theory of crime and punishment summed up and put down the drain.
The deterrent effect of a punishment does depend on some form of rationality on the part of the potential criminal; why is that removed in the driving scenario.
Given some modicum of rationality on the driving public the deterrent effect is proportional to the severity of penalty and the likelihood of apprehension. As either of these rises so deterrence for the rational will become more effective at reducing the incidence of the act taking place and the people willing to carry it out.
Perhaps the government are starting to increase deterrent sentences to compensate for their savage reductions in the likelihood of being detected doing something wrong. I don't think they would be planning that far ahead somehow.
Crime and punishment are linked in the rational human but that doesn't prevent some of them being daft enough to not only perform the same illegal act twice but some even do it in the same place. Those who display that degree of irrationality may struggle to appreciate the deterrent effect of penalties, sanctions and sentences. That doesn't however mean that it doesn't work for those of us who behave rationally in that respect.
Your claim above is irrational and baseless.

Says you! You seem to have only read a part of my post, and not the explanation.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Case in point. I observed a driver the other day drive straight out onto a main road from a side road without looking to her right at all (I was on my bike coming at her at about 25mph, watching her eyes which never deviated from looking left all the time she was out of the cover given by the building to her right), obviously in a hurry so she simply followed the car in front (and she wasn't that close behind that either, he'd already pulled out quickly cos he'd seen me coming).

Dangerous driving in my book.

Six years in prison according to the IAM's logic?

I don't think stiffer penalties will reduce "murderous" driving like the peice mentions much, after all, you get to spend 12 to 40, 50 or 60 years in prison for murder, and people still do it and think they can get away with it, but they send a strong message out to your basic careless/dangerous driver that it's not acceptable.

I would class that as careless driving with the potential to be dangerous depending on the circumstances....hardly murderous don't you think?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

So, it's the circumstances that make something dangerous as opposed to just careless?

Yep it would be careless but not neccessarily dangerous, to discharge, accidently, a loaded gun in the open countryside, it would be dangerous if it was in a field full of people.

In a driving vein, it would be careless but probably not dangerous, to mount a kerb on a high street at 4AM it would be more dangerous at 4PM.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

The problem as I see it is that what injury results from a collision can depend on other factors. Last year I witnessed an accident where a car was turning right and a car behind hit and knocked the car into the side of a lorry travelling in the opposite direction. The front of the car was completely demolished but the driver walked away with a few bruises from the seat belt. Had this happened a fraction of a second earlier, then the car would have been pushed in front of the lorry and I am sure the outcome would have been considerably worse. So it was circumstance that determined the outcome, not the action of the driver that went into the back of the car. This is going to be the case in many accidents and indeed near misses.