Dear Sir,
We cannot allow road safety and driver sentencing to be based on the raw emotionalism of the bereaved. That would mean that, losing someone in a road accident, suddenly bestows specialist qualification in driving, road safety, accidents and prosecution. Of course it doesn't.
In support of a petition, signed by a tiny minority of the population, to jail drivers for each victim in a road accident, David Cameron is to meet the widows of two cyclists who were killed by a dangerous driver who had also been drinking too. He has previously expressed his support to such proposals from the anti driver lobby in the House.
On the face of it, road safety is portrayed as benign. It isn't. Having been hijacked by profiteers on the one hand and the anti driver green lobby on the other it has become extremely aggressive. There is no conscience when it comes to mobilising the bereaved in the cause so that road safety policy is now skewed totally against drivers and by default, the community too. As a result much of road safety policy is so flawed we are long overdue for a complete review of it and the ideology on which much of it is based.
The sentencing of drivers, is one such example of how bad policy is so easily adopted. There are a number of reasons why we shouldn't base a sentence on the number of victims from an accident.
A murderer has to deliberately and with intent, attack more than one person with the intent to kill each.
A road accident is totally unintentional and if more than one person dies from it that is from one unintended action .Surely most of us can see the difference here? .
The next aspect is dangerous driving. That is entirely perceived and subjective unless there is a plea of guilt. It is the only long prison term offence which depends on the opinion of non experts and hostile witnesses. In every other such case, ordinary people must stick to fact in evidence: opinion being reserved for expert witnesses only. Any honest and intelligent person will accept that there should never be a lower burden of evidence accepted in any cases involving long terms of imprisonment. Why should drivers be discriminated against when it comes to evidence in their trials?
Drivers should only be sentenced for their actions that resulted in death and prison terms will often be warranted. However, I have to point out that had no-one been killed or injured and there were only bent metal for the very same conduct, a sentence would be far less if at all. So from the terrible coincidence that human flesh intervened from exactly the same action, with the added dimension that currently society is allowing an unnecessary activity on our roads, we want to jail people for long terms.
It's at times like this, in the face of draconian proposals from the cycling lobby, that drivers are entitled to ask politicians, do we even need cyclists in the road?
When we consider driver sentencing, we must not forget that, for very good reasons, society perpetuates this very dangerous scenario from expediency yet when it goes wrong wants to jail people for long terms of imprisonment.
In view of all that, I feel this petition is ill conceived. When Mr Cameron has heard these tragic widows, will he also invite someone to speak for common sense before throwing his weight behind raw emotionalism?
Wishes
Keith Peat
