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Transport Secretary Chris GraylingLonger sentences for banned drivers who kill or injure other road users
The government has today announced increased penalties for drivers who kill or seriously injure other road users while banned.
The law will be changed so disqualified drivers will face up to ten years in prison if they cause death, and a new offence of causing serious injury while disqualified will be created, with a maximum penalty of four years in prison.
Justice Secretary Chris Grayling also announced plans to launch a full review of all driving offences and penalties, including reviewing offences committed by uninsured and unlicensed drivers.
In 2012, there were 16 prosecutions and 13 convictions in 2012 for causing death by driving when disqualified, unlicensed or uninsured, according to the government’s own figures.
Announcing the change in the law, Grayling said: “I want to make our roads safer and ensure people who cause harm face tough penalties.
“Disqualified drivers should not be on our roads for good reason. Those who chose to defy a ban imposed by a court and go on to destroy innocent lives must face serious consequences for the terrible impact of their actions.
“Today, we are sending a clear message that anyone who does will face much tougher punishment.”
Two of the highest-profile cyclist deaths of recent years involved drivers who had disregarded driving bans, though in both cases they were found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.
In May last year, Nicholas Lovell was jailed for ten years and six months and banned from driving for life for killing Ross and Clare Simons. The couple were riding their tandem when he crashed into them as he was trying to get away from a police car.
Initially banned from driving in 1999, Lovell had 11 convictions for driving while disqualified, and he had also been convicted four times on charges of dangerous driving. That case was one of those raised in a parliamentary debate on sentencing in January.
In December, Samuel Kirk was sentenced to six years in prison for killing Jennifer Hossack. Kirk, who was disqualified at the time of the crash and had also been drinking, illegally crossed a double white line to overtake another vehicle and hit Hossack, who was riding in the opposite direction.
Through its Road Justice campaign, cycling charity CTC has been pressing for a review of the law relating to traffic offences that lead to result in the death or serious injury of vulnerable road users.
CTC’s Road Justice coordinator Rhia Weston welcomed the plan to review all driving penalties and offences.
Weston told road.cc: “CTC strongly welcomes the Government’s commitment to a full review of all driving offences and penalties and specifically the announcement to increase custodial sentences for those who cause death and serious injury whilst disqualified.
“CTC has long called for tougher sentences for those who flout driving bans. CTC’s Road Justice campaign also wants to see much greater use of driving bans for those who commit driving offences without wilful risk taking and wider use of non-custodial options such as vehicle confiscation.
“This is in line with our newly published report on sentencing of driving offences, which will be debated by a panel of legal experts in June.”
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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51 comments
Sadly prevention rather than cure is more expensive and to degree, difficult to quantify the overall success for cost. I do agree entirely but we do live in a world of cure rather than prevention
Prevention is actually significantly cheaper than the cure in most instances.
Every single study/analysis I've seen on preventative programmes, of varying kinds have shown a large net benefit to society.
Better grade schools = Net benefit
More socialisation activity (think youth clubs) = Net benefit
Better skills training for school leavers = Net benefit
The cure is very expensive, prevention is ROI positive.
Exactly - a few thousand quid to a youth club or youth sports group can save millions even if those youth groups keep just two or three youths out of trouble. Add up the cost of social workers, prison and all that and compare those costs with the benefit of having those same youths earning money and paying taxes and it makes sense.
I live in an area with some deprivation. Our cycling club attracts a lot of lads from tough backgrounds and we've managed to keep a few out of trouble. The social benefit that has for all is enormous. It's just a pity the government doesn't recognise how important investing in youth facilities really is.
Looking wider afield, prevention is better than cure on the road too.
I have sympathy with your first two points but not the third. I don't demand people in prison be made to suffer, I just want them kept away from me for a reasonable length of time. As driving bans are apparently almost unenforcable*, the only time I can be sure a dangerous driver isn't out there menacing people is when they are banged up. But I don't feel any urge to brutalise them while they are there (which may just make them worse).
*though surely some way can be found to improve this situation?
On average I bet a person would pay more tax if they die naturally than it costs to imprison someone for driving whilst banned.
Or to put it another way - dead people don't pay tax either.
Exactly. It's completely missing the point.
One of the examples cited involves a driver who had already been convicted of driving whilst disqualified 11 times. This new law wouldn't have prevented the deaths that he eventually went on to cause.
There was an excellent suggestion made here a week or so ago that driving disqualifications should essentially be suspended sentences: drive whilst banned and serve the rest of your ban inside.
yes ... how do you get away with more than 12 points AND still keep your license !!!!!!!!!!!
It would make sense to introduce compulsory re-testing for anyone who gets more than 12 points or who is banned. And before anyone says it, there are plenty still driving out there with 12 points or more.
It makes sense. You might go further and say licenses only last for a period of time before they have to be renewed and a refresher test must be taken.
People require licenses for other dangerous items such as flying aeroplanes and guns. But those licenses do not have a unlimited lifespan and I think the evidence is that automobiles in the UK kill far more people than guns or aeroplanes put together.
So the increased sentence only applies once the banned driver has killed someone.
No doubt it was easier to pass this as a law but I do not think this will deter anyone and no length of sentence will bring a person back.
They need to push further now and make it law that anyone caught driving without a license will also get a prison sentence otherwise the license is meaningless.
Too little too late, the horse has already bolted.
When will we see ALL driving offences taken seriously before they are able to do anything even more dangerous?
Answer: Never.
Just typing the sentence 'driving whilst banned' seems so absurd, but I suppose of they're caught doing it and thrown inside it is better than getting points and a ban on a license which they've already lost...ahhh the whole scenario is just wrong!!
10 years in prision if they get caught might. In truth surely the key is education and a sufficient penalty BUT the morons have to be willing to change their attitude
Why is killing with a car treated differently from killing with any other blunt object?
How about a change in prosecutions so we see more people banned from driving for life?
The law is supposed to provide a sentence then once completed, the person is deemed to have served their punishment and hopefully learnt there lesson.
Having strong incentives to not break the law will always work much better than life times bans which may drive those affected to intentionally subvert the law.
Eitherway, the law seems to have become toothless with regard to such issues
I see no problem with lifetime bans. This the removal of a 'privilege' not a 'right'.
No-one has the 'right' to a driving licence and the quicker Parliament and the Judiciary realise this the better.
My heart agrees with you but my head doesn't. I am all for really tough sentences but the trouble with the "banned for life" recipe being widely used is that it removes any incentive.
Probably most people that get banned take it on the chin and observe the ban. They do so because ultimately they want to drive again legally. They may also have an epiphany about what their driving habits are. they will have to sit an extended test and they will be paying huge insurance and coming to the attention of the police again for anything at all will be a miserable experience. So a ban may actually work in most cases.
But if large numbers of people are banned for life, ie all hope of ever driving again is removed then the likely outcome will be a good deal of disregard. They probably will drive. They'll drive some dangerous old shit heap that they can abandon anytime they want. It won't be registered to them, they won't be insured, they won't be stopping for the police, they are unlikely to drive with any care at all. You can't ban them any more. You could imprison them but then you have to catch them and they won't be pulling over.
It's a nice idea banning people for life. I'd rather see more custodial sentences for offences that would get anywhere near that kind of ban anyway rather than just driving bans. But it may have unforeseen consequences of an increasing number of completely outlaw drivers. No licence, no tax, in a £100 car they are prepared to run off and leave if they have to.
That may not be so good.
This seems to completely miss the point. Surely we should be jailing people for driving whilst disqualified *before* they kill or injure someone?
If they simply changed from sentences running concurrent to sequential, a lot of these under-sentencing malarkey would go away.
Then simply stack the offences, get a verdict on each, and put the scum away.
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