Drug driver who swerved onto wrong side of the road after his glasses fell off killed cyclist

My sincere and deepest condolences to Colin McCourt's nearest and dearest - this should not happen. 

<rant mode on>
It infuriates me. I work in the railway industry, I have done so since 1991. We have a no drugs, no alcohol policy and have done so all this time I've been here. The same applies to many other branches of civil, military and blue light services. There are regular d&a tests, one fail and you're out, no ifs, no buts. It's the law of the land and that's that.

if the death rate in e.g. the UK civil engineering construction industry, maritime, quarrying, light railway, airline, manufacturing, catering, and railway, etc., etc., etc. industries amounted to the UK road death average of about 5 daily, they would be closed-down overnight. Rightly too.

The answer is obvious. Our cars have an annual MOT inspection of vehicles more than 3 years old and they are deemed on the spot to be roadworthy or not. I've had Lord-knows how many tests of my professional competence as a railwayman and umpteen drugs & alcohol tests. 
At risk of sounding like a Daily Fail ranting, something similar has to be done to address this missing link to get unfit and demonstrably killer drivers "in the net" before more innocent road users are unnecessarily killed or injured.

Tests for drivers every two years? Five years? I don't know. This isn't a war in motorists, it's getting the apparently increased number of unfit drivers off the road and therefore improving the road for all users.

... and don't even start the debate with the number of "careless" or "dangerous" drivers who have licenses ... but here goes. Should there be psychometric testing before a driving license is granted?

<rant over, normal mode resumed>

Unfortunately the UK has a culture that driving offences aren't really criminal. It's easy enough to see that the driver was a wrong 'un, but the reality is that in the past others have colluded with him to allow driving without insurance or licence. As for dangerous driving, it's not like you don't see drivers doing stupid things, including sitting down backways doing drugs, on a daily basis.

So one out of circulation for a while, but while we have a culture of not taking driving seriously, it is not going to make the roads noticeably safer, neither from the criminally dangerous nor from the criminally careless.

My deepest sympathies to the family and friends of Colin McCourt.

This was one of those things that could happen to any of us and there would be absolutely nothing we could do about it.

And any drivers out there (don't do it on drugs) but you always have the option of slowing down and stopping and then finding what you need.

On the whole I'm not a big advocate of custodial sentences but this is exactly the scenario where it is 100% appropriate in order to protect the general public. I only wish that he gets a lifetime driving ban (he won't). I know people will say "but he'll only drive again even if he doesn't have a licence", but in that case, IMO, he would merit a life sentence should he be caught driving whilst banned. 

Apologies, should have read the article properly.

I'm following Thames Valley Police on social media... I'm horrified by the number of drug drivers they pull over.  Seems far more endemic than drink driving.

At least it is being reported by one "newspaper", others up here are just ignoring it.

It will be a slap on the wrists on doubt, but as the victim worked at Faslane maybe, just maybe, justice will be done.

road.cc wrote:

The court heard that MacKinnon had four prior convictions for road traffic offences, including driving while unlicensed and driving while uninsured.

Also methadone in his system, so illegal drugs have been part of his life. So not your average "otherwise law abiding" driver. Or a "momentary lapse".

Just wondering though - what's the bigger picture for driver recklessness and/or incompetence? So often the stories have it that it was *either* a lifelong pantomime villain OR a random one-off aberration. In the former case it allows us - we responsible drivers - to distance ourselves from "people like that". And also means we can shrug and say "you can never stop that from happening..."

In the latter case it's "just one of those things" and "tragic accident".

In both cases, the situation remains the same.

Wonder if anyone has any idea of how to look at numbers? Probably we'd also need to look at "near misses" or things that could have been a crash / KSI but by luck ended well. Beyond the Kerb casebook / Bez seems to have stopped counting...

I suspect reality is as usual more complex than the headlines.

The only thing off his face was him himself. Drugged, reckless, repeat offender. Looking for 10 years gaol and lifetime driving ban. Expecting 18 months and a slap on the wrist.

Looking forward to the frankly pathetic sentence he will get despite repeated indications that he shouldn't be trusted behind the wheel of a car. What do we reckon 5 years max? After all it wasn't his fault he was off his tits and thought it was OK to take his eyes off the road to look for his glasses.