Clause 20 - Causing death by careless, or inconsiderate, driving
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Sally Keeble (Northampton North, Labour)
Yes, that is right. I was going to argue that the Lords amendment was a wrecking one, which removed the impact of the extra offence because it removed the measures that people most want—not just a new offence but a proportionate punishment for that offence, which is widely considered to be a prison sentence. With that comes the option of a community order.
We all accept that there are degrees of carelessness and at some stage we have all been careless while we are driving. However, there are differences between the levels of carelessness. There is minor carelessness, which occurs when a person’s attention is deflected by something happening on the road, but there is also substantial and gross carelessness, where the level of care taken falls well below what is expected. In such circumstances, there is clearly a different level of culpability. A separate offence of causing death by careless driving is therefore appropriate so that it is perceived that carelessness is not always blameless.
The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell also said that the offence of causing death by careless driving should not be judged by its consequences. He felt that it was unfair that an offence be dictated by the fact that someone died. I would argue that that is the case with other offences, and I shall give an actual example, because hypothetical cases can seem a bit far-fetched. Although it might appear to stray slightly from the mark, it deals with the idea that it might be possible for an offence to be judged by its consequences.
In my constituency a perfectly normal young man—a student—got drunk in a pub during a happy hour promotion. On the way out, he got into a bit of an altercation with a man who happened to be a bouncer. He was not on duty at the time, but he knew how to fight and was quite heavily built. The young man baited the bouncer and he hit the young man, who then fell over and hit his head on the pavement. It was just a short fight so the police were not called. An ambulance was called, but it was sent away and the young man’s friends took him home. Several days later, he died. It transpired that there was a direct link between his hitting his head and his death, although he died several days later.