Drink-driver who knocked her landlord off his bike says low sun was to blame

I have had a reply from Barnstaple Magistrates legal team.

Apprently North Devon Journal omitted the fact that the lady was disqualified for 17 months. It is also a minimum 12 month disqualification for driving with excess alcohol.

I sent an e-mail off to the court yestreday and had a reply stating their legal people will look in to the decision/reasons. If enough follow suit something might change.

de-barnstaplemclist [at] hmcts.gsi.gov.uk

https://courttribunalfinder.service.gov.uk/courts/barnstaple-magistrates...

As another post suggests, she could easily do her commute to work by bicycle. I don't see why the excuse that she needs the car for work should be accepted. That said, I hope her insurance now costs an arm and two legs.

Road.cc lifetime award for SuperPython59.

Know your limits?

Really?

What does that even mean?

Unless they can produce a peer reviewed scientific study of their personal alcohol intake / blood alcohol levels and effect on reaction times under controlled conditions, or perhaps have access to their own personal calibrated intoximeter then I call bullshit on anyone who claims to 'know their limits'.

Everyone is different, so many variables involved, but a quick web consensus of unscientific opinion* would be that 2 pints of regular strength beer in an couple of hours is sailing close to the wind. If nothing else, what stops me these days from drinking more than a single unit (and I fully appreciate my hypocrisy therein) within an hour or so of driving is that I personally wouldn't feel comfortable having to use some bullshit excuse about being 'within my limits' to a bereaved relative or injured third party, let alone to Plod and then a magistrate as I just fail a roadside breath test.

Did Ms Mowcoomber think that she was "within her limits" when she got into a car and drove that evening? Would a belief that she was "within her limits" lead her to the conclusion that the road traffic collision she was involved in was purely bad luck, the fault of the sun, not caused by her drunken state and bad driving?

I'm not in favour of a zero dring / drive legal limit. We don't live in Saudi Arabia and I think the current limit is probably about right as a fairly blunt tool to filter out the dangerously intoxicated from the driver who had a couple of pints the night before. I am in favour of not drinking any alcohol if you know you are the designated driver. I am in favour of drunken, uninsured drivers being taken off the roads except in circumstances so exceptional that I cannot even think of a realistic one right now.

*Unfortunately due to the variables involved no respectable authoritative source is going to give what us laymen would call a straight answer to the question of 'how many pints can I drink and still be legal to drive'.

Parliament has chosen to use the proportion of alcohol in your breath/blood/urine as a measure. Different people will show different levels for the same amount of alcohol. I'm like unconstituted: drank a lot in my youth and could happily cycle along doing the actions to YMCA after 15 pints. Now I hardly drink (no time). Ultimately, if you drink anything and then drive you may be OK but you can't complain if you get caught and you have no mitigation if you have an accident and get punished.

As to the rest of the comments, unless the law has changed, this isn't an exceptional hardship point: they don't apply to drink driving. It has to be special reasons, and they only apply to the offence, not the offender.

No power to review the sentence, as far as I know.

I actually think when I was younger, like my early to mid 20s, I'd probably have done well in some sort of performance driving test after two pints. Probably because I was drinking quite a bit since my mid to late teens and used to skating under mad amounts of drink, and still kept drinking socially until my mid 20s. Just wouldn't do much for me.

Now, that I don't drink much, maybe few drinks a month, two pints would mean I'd be half pissed. Genuinely a massive lightweight these days, but the missus doesn't drink, not against it, just doesn't like the taste, so I don't bother either. 

No two people are the same with alchohol. A few years ago local police were conducting a drink drive campaign and had the police station machine to demonstrate. They had some low alcohol (as close to zero as you could get - horrible stuff) to show that this was preferable. Yet just one drink failed! This was not the aim of the campaign and had the required time elapsed then I daresay the result would have been different. I certainly made me wonder just how accurate their machines were and made me very wary of having any drink when  I am driving.

NO insurance and drunk driving. Why aren't idiots like this just getting a ban?

OK, everything has been said and the magistrate's decision was clearly absurd.

How do you challenge the decision of a magistrate?  What is the legal process?  Do we need to set up crowdfunding or what?

This 'exceptional hardship' exemption has become absurd, to the point of rendering the rules on driving bans meaningless.

So she's only 5 miles from work? That's a walkable, yet alone cycleable, distance.

Every job I've had that had a 4 miles or less commute I've walked or cycled without even thinking about it (public transport being far too much effort). Over that I'd probably not walk, but perfectly doable by bike.

Or is it that she wouldn't feel safe cycling because of the risk of being hit by a drunk driver?

As a cyclist, as a car driver, as a pedestrian, why should I be forced to share the road with the likes of Ms Mowcoomber?

This does seem to be an utterly bizarre case. I've not been in the magistrates'courts for a while, and don't have the right books to have but from memory drink driving carries a mandatory ban, with the only exception being "special reasons" not to disqualify.

The thing about special reasons is that they must be to do with the offence, not the offender. Losing your job is not a special reason. Special reasons include short distance driven (and this has to be very short - the classic (but very sexist) one is wife drives home from the pub but gets husband to do the tricky parking, on a quiet road with nobody around except a passing bobby); emergency; spiked drink etc. The test is whether a sober friend would advise you to drive in the circumstances. Accordingly, it is rarely allowed.

This cannot (or certainly should not) be a special reasons case on the grounds of loss of job. One of two things has happened: either the court stuffed up royally or the report is missing some vital information.

Magistrates should NOT be allowed any discretion in drink/drive cases. There has been a drink/drive limit for over 40 years and there is NO excuse. Drive over the limit and lose your livlihood as you deserve.

Magistrates should also have NO discretion with the 12 points and you're banned threshold either; how many drivers are out there still driving with 15 points and more? it's up to YOU the drivers to be responsible as regards your ability to provide for your brood, not for society to be put at further risk because you're a prat! The whole subject of magistrate discretion needs looking at...

It depends on the charge. I assume it's driving rather than being in charge. One is mandatory, the other is not. Nothing is clear from the report at all. Perhaps road.cc could follow that up. It's also not clear what special reasons, if this was a drink drive, were put forward or accepted. No clarity whatsoever.

She deliberately broke at least two laws, only failed to kill someone by good fortune, but was let off. How the feck can any lawyer justify this? I thought the whole threat about drink driving was " if you do this, we'll ban you and you may lose your job"?

WTF?!

I thought drink driving was an automatic ban?

Has she been let off BECAUSE she hit a cyclist? (Apparently people don't like them.)

I feel that someone should slash her tyres in the interest of the public's safety.

Drink driving should be a 2  or 3 year ban, as a minimum and if it involves a collision with another road user, they should get 5 years. If caught driving again they serve their ban behind bars, simple way to sort it out.

The few convicted drink drivers I have known had no remorse and said "I would still drive after 1 or 2 pints". Luckily none of them injured anyone, but they still drove like pricks when sober. 

Isn't a minimum one year ban mandatory for drink driving?

I think the magistrate could well find themselves in very hot water for this one, who do you report it to?

How far is the pub from her house? Perhaps she could cycle.....

How is causing injury whilst drunk and unisured not an automatic ban. Time to fill in the lenient sentence form again. https://www.gov.uk/ask-crown-court-sentence-review