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Fantasy vs Fair Punishments

by Cycloid
Tue, May 18, 2021 18:42
5

On Road CC we often get posts decrying the sentance handed out to someone who has caused an collision involving a cyclist.

Generally the posts fall into two classes, those which take a deep and considered view of what is seen as shortcomings in our justice system, and those which express frustration with the situation. I call the latter fantasy punishments because they often take the form "he should be hung over a motorway bridge by his testicles". 

What is a fair punishment? Maybe we are just looking at it from our own perspective and are being too severe.
Should the punishment fit the crime? For example should an aggressive driver be made to take a bikeability course up to level3 under the instruction of a regimental sargeant major? (And then hung over a motorway bridge etc..)

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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5 comments

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Tom_77 | 2 years ago
4 likes

What I'd really like to see is more enforcement. It doesn't matter what the penalty is if your chances of being caught are almost zero. The annual cost of the death and destruction on UK roads is £36 billion so you could make a strong economic case for more enforcement.

I'd like to see the law around careless / dangerous driving changed to have a more objective test. Too often dangerous drivers only get convicted of careless driving.

I'd also like to see longer driving bans, generally bans should be 2-3 times longer than the bans that are typically handed out currently. I'd like to see all driving bans be for a minimum of a year, and a minimum of 5 years if you kill someone (and 10 years be the typical ban for death by dangerous driving).

I'm not generally in favour of sending people to jail. But if you drive while banned then I think jail time would be appropriate in most circumstances.

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Captain Badger | 2 years ago
3 likes

My view is that there are two components, and they should be considered seperately in every single case

The first is the health and safety/risk mitigation approach. Where a driver has demonstrated that they are a risk to the public (intentionally or not) action needs to be taken to mitigate risk. points on licence, retraining, revocation of licence and fines should be used as mitigation of danger to health. This is purely based on competency and risk, and should not be affected by remorse, momentary loss of concentration, hardship, charitable works, Aunty Vi's weekly shopping.

The second comes to where 3rd parties are directly affected, and should be viewed in the manner of intimidation, assault, injury, manslaughter etc. Here penalties may be further fines, community service, imprisonment etc

Just my two penneth, and clearly not a fully formed policy, but rather broad principals

 

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andystow | 2 years ago
3 likes

Revocation of driving licence.

Sentence similar to doing the equivalent with any other implement. Careless driving ~ carelessly chucking bricks off your roof while remodeling. Dangerous driving ~ throwing bricks into a crowd (but not aiming at a particular person.) Momentary inattention ~ electrician gets distracted and kills a colleague with a mistake. Something like that.

Driving after licence is revoked, though... well, you've already demonstrated that's no deterrent. Is there some way other than locking you up that society can prevent you from driving? Certainly crush the car unless you stole it.

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ktache replied to andystow | 2 years ago
1 like

Driving whilst disqualified is viewed far too leniently.  A small fine with just an extension of the ban.  The fact that they are insured as well...

Removal of the motor vehicle from the offender should be a given, maybe with destruction.  And if it belongs to someone else, then that would be Taking Without Consent, so a theft charge.

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EK Spinner replied to ktache | 2 years ago
2 likes

I think that there should be a fairly simple process for dealing with driving while disqualified.

They have treated the courts ruling with contempt, the court should be allowed to  assume they have done so from day one of the ban, so now the full disqualification must be enforced and the only way to ensure they don't drive for the length of time prescribed is to lock them up for the full duration of the original ban (not the remainder)

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