Drivers' Union

I

R.Hon. Michael Gove MP,

Secretary of State for Justice,

House of Commons

Westminster,

SW1A 0AA

 

                                                                                                                   12th May 2015

 

Dear Mr Gove,

 

Congratulations on your party’s recent election success and your own appointment.

 

I am an ex police road safety expert and am devoting my life in the cause of genuine, not for profit or ideologically based road safety and driver prosecution.  I am sure you would agree that best road safety will never come from a profit or ideology base or motive.

 

I am also very concerned that too much emotionalism is affecting ministers in their deliberations on driver sentencing and punishment.

 

Gaol and punishment will only deter a deliberate act. Drivers do not set out to cause harm and accidents are totally unintentional. It’s very difficult to see how the prospect of a long term of imprisonment is a deterrent for an unintentional act.

 

In the past, ministers have been too ready to cite emotional and tragic cases to promote longer gaol terms in The House.

 

From expediency, Society allows and depends on millions of very ordinary people to operate dangerous machinery among other humans in a way that no other transport mode would tolerate and then, when it goes wrong, expects to incarcerate them for long terms, often just to placate the bereaved and the victims.

 

How can it be right that bent metal, which wouldn’t even interest police, can suddenly transform into a long gaol term from the horrid coincidence that human flesh intervened? Cars do bump into things all the time.

 

The burden of proof is also much lower to gaol drivers too. In murder and robbery, ordinary witnesses are confined to fact and not opinion yet for death by dangerous driving the opinions of non expert, often hostile witnesses are allowed.

 

Unlike a gunman, who deliberately sets out to shoot several people, a driver doesn’t set out to kill anyone; let alone a number of people. Yet ministers in the past have demanded gaol terms based on the number of victims from an accident too.

 

I am also concerned that the police are routinely arresting drivers after horrid accidents when they are undoubtedly in shock and trauma. Under these circumstances it’s a puzzle that any of their immediate comments are admissible at all. Depriving anyone of their liberty should still be regarded as very serious in all but a Police State. Even murderers, robbers and burglars, unless found committing, are not arrested without some evidence having been gathered and yet how often do I read that a driver has been arrested and the police are appealing for witnesses. .

 

I hope that in the new Government, ministers will be much fairer towards drivers than they have been hitherto and that justice will reflect the very dangerous scenario that society depends on and condones so much.

 

Basically they are very ordinary people of totally diverse mental capacity and ability, struggling from necessity with an onerous responsibility for which, in most cases, they are totally unsuited.

 

Perhaps the commonly accepted definition of ‘accident’ should be restored to its rightful place on our roads so that a whole revision of justice for drivers can be undertaken.

 

I would be most grateful if you would convey these thoughts to your ministers.

 

Yours Faithfully

 

 

 

Keith Peat