[chrisonabike]

I’m still trying to understand what if any logic applies around Death By Careless, Death By Dangerous Driving – now here’s a possible murder charge. It will be interesting to see where this goes:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-59367657

Apparently “the man may have been involved in an altercation with the occupants of the Audi moments before the collision”. Doesn’t seem to work if you’re on a bicycle though – although you might just get a longer “Death By Dangerous Driving” sentence for that kind of thing if you’re sufficiently offensive to the court.

For comparison – other incidents:

Attempted murder and a very long sentence (the chap who drove into a nightclub): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/10/man-who-drove-car-on-to-packed-dancefloor-jailed-for-28-years-blakes-gravesend

Manslaughter: https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/man-convicted-of-manslaughter-after-driving-at-victim-in-erith/

Death By Dangerous Driving (similar in that there was an altercation first): https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/road-rage-thug-jailed-after-20469648

Topic

[OnYerBike]

My understanding of how it is

My understanding of how it is meant to work, based on https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/homicide-murder-and-manslaughter and https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/road-traffic-charging:

If there’s no intent to hurt, then death by careless/dangerous driving, followed by manslaughter, depending on exactly how bad the driving was. My understanding is that death by careless/dangerous driving essentially exist because juries wouldn’t convict drivers of manslaughter, and now manslaughter is reserved for the most egregious cases. I would argue manslaughter ought to be used more commonly, especially when drink/drugs are involved. 

If there is intent, then murder/attempted murder/GBH with intent etc. The relevant charge depends on both the outcome and the extent to which intent can be demonstrated. There is a slight oddity that you can be convicted of murder if you only intended to hurt the victim (but they died as a result) where as attempted murder requires intent specifically to kill. Attempted GBH doesn’t have quite the same ring to it but it is another available charge. 

But the examples you give do seem to contradict that. The Erith case – it appears to be well established that the perpetrator deliberately drove into the victims, and therefore I don’t see why that was charged as manslaughter and not murder.

The nightclub case – I’m suprised they got (two) attempted murder charges to stick given that the prosectuion would have had to convince the jury beyond reasonable doubt that the perpetrator intended to kill people, not just seriously injure. 

Manchester case – seems like it ought to have been murder if you ask me (and indeed he was initially arrested on suspicion of murder). 

[Recoveryride]

It seems to me (not as a

It seems to me (not as a lawyer) that even if you did not intend to injure, anybody driving a 2 ton metal object should reasonably understand and foresee that carelessness/stupidity/incompetence when in charge of said object has a realistic possibility of hurting someone. Thus, a manslaughter charge seems appropriate.

If it was announced that drivers who killed a cyclist could reasonably expect to be pursued for manslaughter unless they can show why that charge isn’t applicable (i.e. the onus is on the driver to prove it was a genuine ‘accident’), then driving in this country would improve exponentially.

[hawkinspeter]

I find it utterly bizarre

I find it utterly bizarre that there’s such an acceptance that drivers can easily not be in control of their vehicle or be unaware of what’s around them and it’s considered to be just one of those things.

So many RTCs are considered to be unintentional which raises the question of what the drivers are doing. Imagine a building site that doesn’t bother separating builders from the public and then picture if you will, a brick-layer working high up and occasionally dropping bricks by “accident”.

“Sorry mate, I didn’t see you walking down there – I was busy smoothing out some mortar and didn’t realise I’d dropped a brick”

“The sun was in my eyes so I couldn’t possibly have seen that crowd of school-kids walking along when I decided to drop that bucket of cement”

“Listen, I need to get on with building work, so maybe any pedestrians coming along here should be wearing helmets as I obviously can’t look below every time I drop something”

[Secret_squirrel]

There is no logic and

There is no logic and illustrates the flaw that politicians love creating ever more specific crimes when existing ones will do.  So occasionally a child killer will get locked up for a little longer than an adult killer.  Conversely hundreds of assaulting and killer drivers will get a slap on the wrist because the instrument of assault/death was a car, rather than say a 5kg sledgehammer or a knife.

Assault is assault and death is death – the circumstances and extent are important – the actual weapon that dealt out that should be irrelevant.

[Author]

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