Clause 20 - Causing death by careless, or inconsiderate, driving
Road Safety Bill [Lords]
12:30 pm
Stephen Ladyman (Minister of State, Department for Transport; South Thanet, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is right. I do not expect somebody who is charged with causing death by careless driving automatically to receive a custodial sentence simply because an individual has died. It will be for the courts to decide how far their carelessness fell below the standard required. I struggle to understand why Opposition Members are so worried about that. It seems clear that judges and juries are in a good position to make those judgments. They do it all the time.
The individual will have to explain the circumstances of their carelessness and what was going through their mind, and the judge will make a determination based on that. The difficulty that juries have is determining not what is careless, nor the level of carelessness, but the difference between carelessness and dangerous driving. That is why it has always been so difficult to prove an offence of causing death by dangerous driving, and why the offence under discussion will almost always be used as an alternative verdict when somebody is charged with causing death by dangerous driving.
I have no doubt that the number of cases will be limited. It will be up to the Crown Prosecution Service to use the offence when it is the primary charge on the indictment, but in my view, it will normally be used in an alternative verdict.