Why is it Labour Bragg's about more Police and I still do not see any.

Because dangerous driving is risky, whereas knife-crime is malicious.

Come on, Dave, you're better than this.

QT I don't see much difference between stabbing someone with malicious intent and knocking a kid over in your car because you were doing 50 in 30mph zone. You know the risks when you drive like that and you therefore knowingly risk other people's lives. As Dave points out the dead and the injured are just as dead or injured whether they were intentionally harmed or whether someone (intentionally) took risks with their life and others'.

I saw someone doing a Starsky and Hutch skid around a roundabout in my local town in the rain a couple of days ago and then accelerate off down a busy street where lots of kids live. Scum.

"Because dangerous driving is risky, whereas knife-crime is malicious."

Yes its risky and people know there is a high risk of causing serious injury or death if they speed, drink when under the influence.

People still seem to think that they are ok after a few pints, but they are not.

There has been years of campaigns highlighting the risk of killing someone if you drive after drinking. There are ca,paigns that point out the much greater likihood of death if you hit someone at a greater speed on a road in a built up area.

There is no excuse for speeding in those area s or getting into a car after a drink.

Its manslaughter rather than murder but it should still have high sentences. There isnt an excuse for hitting someone when you have drunk, making a phone call (or as some have done while texting !) or speeding.

You have a responsibility when you drive and if you take those risks , to other people, then you should face tough penalities.

The mistake here isn't to confuse risky behaviour with criminally malicious thuggery. It's a question of the erotics of violence. The truth is that most white, middle class, political reactionaries would rather be crushed to death in a car accident (however it is caused) than have some sweaty working-class black teenager stick a hard, erect, phallic-shaped object inside them in an encounter so close that it might be described as intimate.

Indeed, even these political reactionaries know that the free market only runs smoothly when a blind eye is turned to minor transgressions (such as the black market) which productively speed up the flow of capital. So one could make the case that the consistently reckless behaviour of the average British driver is merely a reflection of the dominant economic and political ideology, in which people compete, cheat, succeed and fail in a circuit of flows.

As a fellow non driver I totally agree with you on this. Speed cameras should be replaced with a guided missile emitting device so when a driver breaks the limit they will suffer the appropriate consequences.
There should be a zero alcohol limit and any violation should result in automatic life ban.
Any pissed driver who causes death through their actions should be charged with murder, getting behind the wheel when pissed should be treated as an act of premeditation. Other acts of dangerous driving causing death and serious injury should carry the potential of a life sentence just like murder, manslaughter and GBH.
Cars that park in bus lanes and other places and hold up bus users going about our daily business should be crushed with the number plates put on top of the crushed car.

My daughter crashed her car into a parked car whilst answering her mobile phone(lucklily nobody was in it at the time).She then drove away from the scene of the accident,the police did catch up with her and charged her. Anyway when we went to court her biggest fear was meeting the owner of the vehicle and all the distress she must of caused her.This really ties in with Dave' previous blog when he mentions facing up to the consequences of their actions maybe the way forward.

Whilst road deaths have come down to their lowest levels since 1929, knife crime seems to be pretty much constant, the only thing changing there is that offenders are getting younger.

Whatever existing laws about dangerous driving were, they seem to be working fine. Whilst for knife crime, the laws as they stand are adequate, enforcement just needs to be targeted better.

I agree with Chris that existing laws on dangerous driving are necessary and sufficient.

I wouldn't be against upping the penalties for causing death by dangerous/reckless driving, but equating killing someone accidentally (e.g. by speeding) with knife murder warrants ridicule.

>I don't see much difference between stabbing someone with malicious intent and knocking a kid over in your car because you were doing 50 in 30mph zone.

Incredible.

The accurate comparison would be chasing a kid along the street or across a field in your car with the intention of killing it.

If you want a proper comparison with "knocking a kid over in your car because you were doing 50 in 30mph zone" (where there was no intent to knock a kid over), try something like "stabbing someone when you are running with scissors" or stabbing your partner by mistake when carrying a breadknife across the kitchen.

Sorry, but the comparison you are trying to make is simply inaccurate - the difference between the two ("intent") is as plain as a pikestaff.

Those who have been campaigning to base punishment more on result than intent are dangerously and perversely muddying our legal system.

We are now in a position when the punishment of a motorist for knocking over a cyclist could turn on whether the cyclist forgot their helmet or not that particular morning (which will affect the level of injury).

Are you calling *that* justice?

Rgds

Matt

I agree with you that the question of intent changes everything.

But you are wrong over this question:

"We are now in a position when the punishment of a motorist for knocking over a cyclist could turn on whether the cyclist forgot their helmet or not that particular morning (which will affect the level of injury)."

The so called "eggshell skull principle" is long standing feature of English common law in both criminal cases and tort - the perpetrator takes the victim as he finds him/her, even if the damge is greater than could have been reasonably forseen.

So your concerns over a cyclist not wearing a helmet increasing the snetance for a motorist knocking them over is in accordance with the whole ethos and traditions of English law and custom going back centuries.

I don't mean you concern goes back centurues!

I mean that principle of law.

I don't mean your concern goes back centuries, I mean the principle of English law that you are concerned about goes back centuries!

Colonel (Retired) Paddy Garcia is absolutely right. I volunteer for his Brigade. Just hope it extends its remit to Cyclists: the speed crazed bastards who zoom down the pavements, pass through the red-lights, and hurtle towards us, next to my gaff merit a good wallop as well.

For Militant Pedestrianism!

We can do better, armed paramilitary style traffic wardens to dispense summary justice to offenders. Persistent offenders to suffer the more exotic aspects of Sharia law, Saudi style, ie amputation of limbs. Difficult to drive with hands and feet cut off. Oh dear, must stop fantasising about this.

Matt

Doing 50mph in a 30 mph zone is against the law. Carrying a breadknife across the kitchen is not. I'm afraid yours is is the absurd comparison, not mine.

Of course I think that intent is important. But look, someone who kills someone else because they were going too fast (when they knew the risks and were aware of the national speed limit) and who then protests 'Oh well I didn't mean to do it' doesn't get much sympathy from me. It's not a tragic 'accident' beyond the control of all involved when a speeding driver knocks over a pedestrian - it is the fault of the driver. Anyone mentally capable of driving is also mentally capable of realising the risks that they are subjecting other people to when they speed excessively.

Your protestations sound like a case of special pleading. This is a crime committed by people like you and me. It's not realy very surprising that many drivers howl with outrage when a comparison is made between their criminal behaviour and that of 'common criminals'. You simply don't want to admit that your driving, if you speed excessively, puts you on a level with other kinds of criminals. It's a class thing isn't it. This is a crime committed by middle class people (amongst others) and, therefore, can't possibly be a terrible thing. Terrible acts are only committed by other people - funny that.

"Whatever existing laws about dangerous driving were, they seem to be working fine."

I'm sorry but what planet are you living on? I regularly encounter utter arseholes on the road - usually men in suits in BMWs. The existing laws are not 'working fine' for the several thousand people killed and maimed on the roads each year. Road deaths may well be coming down - but this doesn't mean that everything is hunky-dory. Perhaps you think that there is an 'acceptable level' of death on the roads - if it's only a few hundred, oh well nothing much to worry about then. I don't know, but perhaps there isn't a 'natural rate' of mortality on the roads - perhaps if speed limits were more rigorously enforced the number of deaths would come down even more. I know this would be an awful pain for the Jeremy Clarksons of this world, but I could probably live with that.

Oh yes, and if we banned vehicles the road death rates would be zero.

Then again, I am on a fucking socialist blog, maybe that is what you're angling for.

Obv. that last comment was aimed at Ed, directly above, not the OP.

Glad you've come around to my way of thinking, Dave, even if you didn't credit me.

And of course Ellis Sharp has been arguing this for years now, that traffic crime is being neglected by the lawnorder boys precisely because it's "our sort of people" committing it and not horrible chavs.

QT - ah you rumbled me.

And of course I want to make you work in the fields, nationalise your womenfolk and ban freedom too because I am, after all, 'a fucking socialist'.

Actually a world in which the use of cars was much much reduced, and in which walking, cycling and the use of decent public transport was the norm would be very nice. I know that must be very shocking for you.

3,000 killed by the car. 400 killed by intentional homicide. Of course the 3,000 lives ended and grieving relatives caused by driving add up to less than the 400 lives ended and grieving relatives caused by an intentional act. After all being dead from an act of 'intent' (although what THAT means is worth a discussion) is much worse than being dead from an act of non-intent. The problem is that the tens of millions of violent deaths in the world are mostly 'non-intentional' outcomes while intentional homicide is a fraction of the figure. Does it makes sense to give special value to the fraction? Go figure...