Text and Drive

[badass]

Speeding, fine and points, maybe a ban depending on severity
Using the phone while driving, fine and points

I think if someone was caught texting whilst crossing a junction they might get a much worse punishment than £60 and 3 points.

[ajones]

In fact, having thought about it some more I'm not convinced even 1 to 2 years isn't over the top. I guess it stems from the relevant punishments for each individual act where the consequences are less severe:

Speeding, fine and points, maybe a ban depending on severity
Using the phone while driving, fine and points

(in fact I think the base fine for both is £60 and 3 points?)

As such a jump to 4 years just because someone else was being idiotic at the time seems rather harsh

So let me get this straight.... you are happy for someone to get 1-2 years for speeding and texting but think it's a little harsh because the individual penalty is 60 quid + 3 points?

Somebody died

What's that worth.... a 120 quid fine and a slap on the wrist?

She was stupid and in doing so cost somebody their life. It is completely irrelevant if the cyclist should have been at that particular place in the road or not. If you want to make it relevant....

The Cyclist for his part in this case received a Life sentence (with no opportunity of parole).
The Driver of the vehicle received 4 years and a ban.

Is that fair?

[schmunk]

The Cyclist for his part in this case received a Life sentence (with no opportunity of parole).
The Driver of the vehicle received 4 years and a ban.

Is that fair?

No, because the cyclist's sentence was much shorter than the driver's...

[TheAnimus]

No, because the cyclist's sentence was much shorter than the driver's...

enless you belive in an after life, in which case it might well be much longer....

[malfunction]

So let me get this straight.... you are happy for someone to get 1-2 years for speeding and texting but think it's a little harsh because the individual penalty is 60 quid + 3 points?

Somebody died

What's that worth.... a 120 quid fine and a slap on the wrist?

She was stupid and in doing so cost somebody their life. It is completely irrelevant if the cyclist should have been at that particular place in the road or not. If you want to make it relevant....

The Cyclist for his part in this case received a Life sentence (with no opportunity of parole).
The Driver of the vehicle received 4 years and a ban.

Is that fair?

I appreciate the fact that the result of her idiocy was that someone lost their life. I appreciate that this *may* have been avoidable on her part. However she did not *intend* to hit anything at all, nevermind injure or kill someone and she didn't (for example) lose control of the car and plough into a cyclist on the other side of the road or into a cyclist attempting to turn into / out of the junction. She hit someone who ran a red light. So for me the person who died is mostly at fault for his own death and the woman just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time doing something bloody stupid. Put it this way - she *may* have been able to avoid hitting him if she wasn't speeding and texting. He *would* have been able to avoid being hit if he didn't run the red light. So I think she should be punished for doing something bloody stupid but not for being in the wrong place at the wrong time - there was no intent and this is a criminal case not a civil case - so how can you punish her for the consequences as opposed to the actions? I believe that the penalty applied should be similar to the penalties levied to someone who acted in a similar manner but did not actually kill anyone. So logically either her penalty is harsh or the base penalties for speeding and using a phone while driving are too low. In my case I think that both actually lie somewhere in between the two extremes - the penalties are too low because they do not act as a sufficient deterrent. This is without going into the whole conversation as to how dangerous a speed of X mph is on road X again.

[ajones]

I give up.

I propose that we all blame TheAnimus for starting off this thread in the first place, and if we find him guilty sentence him to 3 minutes light labour and fine him a Mars bar

[malfunction]

I give up.

Why? Would you prefer she is charged with murder and hanged? On a serious note I'll point out that I don't believe she should have received the basic fines nor whatever the basic equivalent would be if the fines were increased to a more severe punishment. There still has to be a scale in terms of exactly how negligent her behaviour was (i.e. taking the junction into account speeding and texting is worse than it would be on a straight stretch of road). I still think 4 years it too long in this case though. I get the feeling you think prison is a doddle and that spending so many years in prison won't affect her or her life going forward whereas I see 4 years in prison as a bloody long time and plenty of time to destroy a person / something that a person can never recover from (getting run over and killed is not exactly recoverable either but you get my point)... I guess the underlying thing for me is intent and I would imagine she already regrets her actions regardless of the sentence passed down.

[Saracen]

I appreciate the fact that the result of her idiocy was that someone lost their life. I appreciate that this *may* have been avoidable on her part. However she did not *intend* to hit anything at all, nevermind injure or kill someone and she didn't (for example) lose control of the car and plough into a cyclist on the other side of the road or into a cyclist attempting to turn into / out of the junction. She hit someone who ran a red light. So for me the person who died is mostly at fault for his own death and the woman just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time doing something bloody stupid. Put it this way - she *may* have been able to avoid hitting him if she wasn't speeding and texting. He *would* have been able to avoid being hit if he didn't run the red light. So I think she should be punished for doing something bloody stupid but not for being in the wrong place at the wrong time - there was no intent and this is a criminal case not a civil case - so how can you punish her for the consequences as opposed to the actions? I believe that the penalty applied should be similar to the penalties levied to someone who acted in a similar manner but did not actually kill anyone. So logically either her penalty is harsh or the base penalties for speeding and using a phone while driving are too low. In my case I think that both actually lie somewhere in between the two extremes - the penalties are too low because they do not act as a sufficient deterrent. This is without going into the whole conversation as to how dangerous a speed of X mph is on road X again.

There doesn't need to be intent. There doesn't even need to be intent to be convicted of manslaughter. If there was intent, it would be murder, not manslaughter.

That's the whole point. You do something reckless in which someone dies, and that death was predictable, and that's enough. You don't have to expect to kill someone, and it wouldn't be enough if the circumstances that led to the death were sufficiently obscure that the death was unforeseeable. For instance, you pick a fight in a pub and shove someone, they go down, hit their head and die. You certainly didn't intend to kill or even seriously injure, yet nonetheless, they're dead as a direct result of your actions. That's manslaughter.

Or, if that fight is a bit worse, and you punch them, hard enough to break their nose, what then? Well, again, you didn't intend to kill and nobody suggests that you did .... but you punched, and if the jury believes that the punch was intended to cause serious harm (as evidenced by the broken nose) and they die, it's murder, even though you didn't intend to kill. The intent, in that case, was to cause serious harm, but the result was a death.

In both the above examples, I'm assuming that your actions weren't self-defence.

The same logic extends to various categories of manslaughter, such as gross negligence manslaughter or unlawful act manslaughter. In that latter case, the risk needs to be of physical (but not serious) harm, and the offender doesn't even need to realise that they are subjecting someone to that risk (though a sober and reasonable person would need to realise that risk).

The fact that this incident took place in a car changes the charges, but if it had been anything else other than a motoring situation where such a blindingly obvious risk of harm or serious injury was predictable by that sober and reasonable person, and someone died, the charge would still be manslaughter, regardless of the offender not intending any harm. This is a textbook case of intent to cause harm not being the issue, but a duty of care being breached, negligently or recklessly, and death resulting.

[malfunction]

For instance, you pick a fight in a pub and shove someone, they go down, hit their head and die. You certainly didn't intend to kill or even seriously injure, yet nonetheless, they're dead as a direct result of your actions. That's manslaughter.

Or, if that fight is a bit worse, and you punch them, hard enough to break their nose, what then? Well, again, you didn't intend to kill and nobody suggests that you did .... but you punched, and if the jury believes that the punch was intended to cause serious harm (as evidenced by the broken nose) and they die, it's murder, even though you didn't intend to kill. The intent, in that case, was to cause serious harm, but the result was a death.

In both the above examples, I'm assuming that your actions weren't self-defence.

But neither of those really represent what the woman did - the only commonality is that a smaller act / something normally less dangerous has conspired by chance to create a far worse outcome. The equivalent is someone shadow boxing when someone else walks in front of them, is accidentally hit and then dies! Would that be manslaughter? Perhaps the shadow boxer was really negligent and was wearing knuckle dusters and a blindfold while talking on a hands free phone at the same time... It's a ridiculous example but my point is that morally / philosophically at least what she did is not the same kind of act as actually intending to attack someone. Yes she was negligent, she was bloody stupid in fact, but if she wasn't speeding and texting and he ran the red light he'd still have a bloody good chance of being run over and a bloody good chance of dying - not forgetting that a pedestrian has a better chance of going up and over the car and a cyclist is more likely to go underneath it!

The same logic extends to various categories of manslaughter, such as gross negligence manslaughter or unlawful act manslaughter. In that latter case, the risk needs to be of physical (but not serious) harm, and the offender doesn't even need to realise that they are subjecting someone to that risk (though a sober and reasonable person would need to realise that risk).

The fact that this incident took place in a car changes the charges, but if it had been anything else other than a motoring situation where such a blindingly obvious risk of harm or serious injury was predictable by that sober and reasonable person, and someone died, the charge would still be manslaughter, regardless of the offender not intending any harm. This is a textbook case of intent to cause harm not being the issue, but a duty of care being breached, negligently or recklessly, and death resulting.

I am not arguing that what she did wasn't wrong. I am not arguing that it should go unpunished or that it only merits the same punishment as 'normal' speeding / driving without due care and attention. But I do think that the sentence she received is harsh and I think that this is a case of an overly heavy sentence being passed down because the people involved wanted to make a political point about her behaviour - they wanted the sentence to act as a deterrent. [edit] A deterrent is fine - as are harsher penalties - as long as you apply them across the board and I don't think that this has been done in this case.

[JPreston]

A deterrent is fine - as are harsher penalties - as long as you apply them across the board and I don't think that this has been done in this case.

Throughout this thread you've been completely wrong everywhere (), but in particular on that last point the average sentence for causing death through dangerous driving is 44 months. This is not an unusual sentence by any means.

[Saracen]

But neither of those really represent what the woman did ......

They represent the general principle. We can all be held responsible for our actions, and if those actions meet certain criteria and hard results, we probably will be. You do not have to "intend" those consequences, which was the point you made about this woman and the point I was making with those examples.

You said she didn't "intend" to hurt anyone ....

However she did not *intend* to hit anything at all, nevermind injure or kill someone

My point, and the reason for those examples, was that the puncher didn't intend serious injury, let alone to kill, but his actions led directly to the death, and he'd be prosecuted accordingly. So it was a relevant example.

The general situation is this. There are several categories of manslaughter. Gross negligence manslaughter simply requires that a duty of care exists (and for drivers, it does), that it's breached (which it is, because she hit the cyclist), that the death resulted (it did), and that the act can be characterised as gross negligence, and is therefore a crime. Well, texting and speeding certainly fall into that category in my opinion.

However, even if that isn't the case, there's still "unlawful act manslaughter", and thestandards are much lower for that. To be guilty of that, you need :-

- to commit an explicit act (omission could be enough for the above, but not here)
- that act much be predictable (by sober and reasonable people) of causing :-
- physical harm, but not serious harm, resulting from that act.

It does NOT matter if the defendent realised that harm was likely to result. It's enough that the "reasonable" person would.

Again, you don't need to intend harm, and you (as the person accused) don't even need to understand the risk, providing the act is unlawful, predictable to cause harm and physical harm results.

In this case, that standard is a slam dunk.

However, because it's a car, there's other specific charges used instead. But had her degree of ineptitude over her consideration of others resulted in a death, she'd have been charged and most likely convicted of manslaughter.


You're right in that the cyclist was stupid too. But her actions, regardless of what she intended or didn't intend, resulted in a death. She is NOT supposed to be speeding, but was. she was not supposed to be texting, but was. Both are offences. And those acts led to a death.

We can argue about whether the sentence was excessive. Some people think it was. Some people think it was insufficient. Other think it was about right. But at the end of the day, all that is opinion.

[malfunction]

Throughout this thread you've been completely wrong everywhere (), but in particular on that last point the average sentence for causing death through dangerous driving is 44 months. This is not an unusual sentence by any means.

*Sigh*, *whatever!*

I do know I'm arguing a lost cause here (and it's obvious that my understanding of this from a legal standpoint is naive - though my argument is about my perception of / opinion on justice being done and not the legal system itself)...

And I *promise* this is probably the last time I'm going to repeat myself

...but if speeding and texting while driving are so wrong surely they should have harsher punishments regardless of the outcome?

I appreciate many cases of negligence are only detectable due to the consequences of that negligence but you wouldn't receive a simple fine for taking a gun outside and firing pot shots off in the general direction of people even if you didn't actually harm anyone (I'm trying to create a comparison between driving like an idiot on public roads here). I can't think of a more eloquent way of putting it but surely what happened is somewhere between her going out in public with a loaded weapon and him deciding to streak across a firing range? If the cyclist had been doing no wrong I'd be more than happy to support a 4-year sentence.

Edit: Oh and linkage on the 44 months average please. I'm not trying to call your bluff but I was trying to find some decent comparisons earlier on in the thread and failed to do so