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The parents' campaign for safe driving tuition
The Police Federation, which represents the rank and file of our Police Officers, has stirred up controversy by criticising the Crown Prosecution Service. The claim is that the CPS is obsessed with its own targets and fails to prosecute many dangerous drivers because a conviction cannot be guaranteed.
It is the job of the police to investigate road traffic collisions and gather all the evidence. This is then put before the CPS who decide whether to prosecute, and on what charge.
Learn and Live was founded by bereaved parents and many of its supporters have had their lives ruined by the loss of a son or daughter. We have first-hand experience of the variability of the responses in different parts of the country. We receive calls from family members who are devastated not only by the loss of a child but by the apparent detachment and disinterest of some police and the judicial system.
The police are faced first-hand with the devastation and misery resulting from a serious vehicle crash and quite understandably can be affected emotionally by all the trauma. However, it is essentially an intellectual and economic exercise for the CPS, as its main concern is to reach targets set by others to achieve successful prosecutions. We understand that when any decisions are made, the over-riding concern is this need to reach the required targets and anything less than an 80% chance of a conviction, would result in either no prosecution at all or a reduction in the charge.
Is this what the Public wants or expects? Should the expense involved in a prosecution be the deciding factor in determining the rate and level of prosecution?
Those policemen who have had to face the reality of a child run over by a car obviously feel that the CPS is letting down the victims and their families.
The families themselves will surely feel that the Authorities have ignored their personal loss and this lack of recognition certainly adds to their misery.
Our own experience with the Police has been very good and they have done their best to inform and advise us but the system does not help them. The CPS never informed nor consulted us, we found details of the court case by chance.
One important aspect is that the CPS generally employs less experienced and cheaper barristers compared with the defence who are frequently employed by the major insurance companies. This can result in very demoralising experiences for the families, even when the case does get to court.
The most common complaint from the Police and victims' families is that the CPS frequently opts for a lesser charge. Unless drink driving is involved, the two main distinctions are between Careless Driving and Dangerous Driving. Dangerous Driving resulting in a death is an additional charge that recognises the outcome of the offence. There is no such acknowledgement associated with the lesser charge and it is this question of outcome that produces such divided opinions.
Currently, the law makes no difference to the charge if someone dies as a result of careless driving. This is extremely hard for families to accept. The more serious charges of dangerous driving require a very much higher level of proof and it is obvious that juries are reluctant to convict. This is the reason why the CPS usually opts for a lesser charge so that they ensure a conviction and achieve their targets.
Under the present system, this is bound to continue. We all know that deaths on trains or in the air are treated as major disasters, whereas the majority of the public appears to accept the daily death toll on our roads, not to mention the permanent brain damage and paralysis. It is the price we seem happy to pay for our personal driving freedom.
There have been numerous proposals to solve this conflict, but no Government has dared to grasp the nettle and take real action. Victims come in twos or threes and there is usually little media coverage of the events, so the public as a whole fails to understand the enormous drain on resources that result. Police time and effort, hospitals overwhelmed by the dead and injured leading to longer and longer delays for other patients. Families broken apart, jobs lost and marriage break-ups.
One of the reasons why juries are reluctant to convict is that using the word "accident" as opposed to "collision" implies that the" incident" was a question of chance or bad luck. Most people know that they have been guilty of driving errors, if not violations, and the belief that "there but for the grace of God---" has a strong influence on their decisions.
Learn and Live argues that anyone who attempts to drive a vehicle without the appropriate licence, insurance or tax should be immediately classed as "dangerous". As with drunk drivers, they have no right to be driving that vehicle in the first place. Any collision that occurs should lead to automatic prosecution for dangerous driving. Any contributory negligence from other parties can be covered in sentencing.
Learn and Live also supports a move to scrap the current charges and introduce a crime of vehicular injury or manslaughter. This should have a sliding scale to allow for the range of circumstances in each crash. The judge and jury can hear all the evidence and respond more appropriately to individual cases.
We have other concerns about sentencing. It is unacceptable to allow a form of "plea bargaining" so that offences are grouped together with sentences running concurrently rather than consecutively. What use is there in banning someone of 13 from driving for 5 years? They should not be driving legally for 4 years anyway, so where is the punishment? The sentence appears to acknowledge that this person would be driving before the minimum age and the actual ban is for only 12 months.
The practice of "Taking into consideration" other offences when sentencing improves the clear up rate for burglaries etc., but allowing the same benefit for driving violations only benefits offenders.
Thousands of people lose their licences annually. How many actually drive away from court? Thousands of people lose their licences annually. How many actually drive away from court? There is no attempt to monitor subsequent behaviour even when there is a record of illegal driving and crashes. They go on to cause further mayhem and then the whole process starts again.We now have far fewer traffic police and little chance of picking up violators until it is too late. Even the New Drivers Act is following a similar pattern. The Driving Standards Agency gives the figures for newly qualified drivers who lose their newly acquired licences after accruing six penalty points. There is a vast gap between those figures and the numbers who bother to retake the test. The rest of them are often driving illegally and there is no attempt to check on them. The New Drivers' Act was intended to catch violators early, in the hope that retaking the test would save them and other road users from subsequent death or injury. The state pays lip service to the notion but appears to have no real commitment to the principle.
Of course this is all "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted". It is impossible to bring the victim back to life and many more suffer permanent injury.
Prevention is always preferable and Learn and Live has consistently campaigned for improved driver training and especially for a Graduated Driving Licence to reinforce the reality that passing the driving test is only the first step and not the end of learning. All those areas overseas that introduced GDL have achieved some reduction in death and injury, particularly those that included restrictions for riskier circumstances.
As a nation, we must alter our attitudes to our "road rights". We should forget them and concentrate on our own "road responsibilities".
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