Why are driving crime sentences so lenient?

[diy_fun_uk]

Drink 5 pints and a measure of spirit.
Drive home.
Knock over a cyclist, killing him.
Don't remain at the scene.

The sentence?

Take a guess and then read the article to see if you're close.

Driver who drank 'five pints' before killing cyclist is jailed

Vicky Hardy, 44, drank the six drinks at the The Jolly Potter before she started to drive to her home in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, in the early hours of the morning in July 2022.

www.dailymail.co.uk

I genuinely can't get my head around it. If the judges are limited by sentencing guidelines then said guidelines need changed. There's surely a world of difference between a genuine accident and committing an out and out crime like this.

 

[motorbiking]

I’d read the details.

No proof of drink driving.

“It's been impossible to calculate your alcohol level at the time of the incident because you claimed to have drank alcohol the following morning.'”

So we are left with 38 in a 30 and a fatal accident.


Guilty plea for death by dangerous driving.


So she gets a discount for guilty plea.

While I do not condone her behaviour, they simply could not pin intoxication on her.

 

[Munroast]

For what ever reason it is as though whatever happens on the road is happening in some parallel universe. Laws just seem optional, the daily carnage is just ignored in favour of those who like to drive fast and play with their phones

Take the yacht accident a couple of weeks ago where 7 people died. Headline news for days,
Meanwhile in the rest of Europe since that trajedy, about 800 people will have been killed on the roads, no one seems interested

Take Grenfell, still making the news , it was a shocking and mostly preventable tragedy.
In the rest of the UK In the 7 years since then an estimated 12800 killed and 200,000 seriously injured on our roads - Most of these are probably preventable if the police would enforce the law

 

[motorbiking]

You have to get your head around the fact, that in most cases, there is no intention to kill or injure.

A person can pull up at a junction, fail to look properly and pull out only to..
a)... get shouted at by the cyclist he failed to spot.
b)... knock off the cyclist he failed to spot, causing minor cuts and bruises.
c)... kill the cyclist he failed to spot.

In each situation we have driving without due care and its was down to luck whether the person was killed or injured.

In general crimes should be punished according to the criminal intent.

 

[Munroast]

You have to get your head around the fact, that in most cases, there is no intention to kill or injure.

A person can pull up at a junction, fail to look properly and pull out only to..
a)... get shouted at by the cyclist he failed to spot.
b)... knock off the cyclist he failed to spot, causing minor cuts and bruises.
c)... kill the cyclist he failed to spot.

In each situation we have driving without due care and its was down to luck whether the person was killed or injured.

In general crimes should be punished according to the criminal intent.

so you see nothing wrong in Grenfell as no one intended it to happen?

Reckless conduct is not dissimilar to intent. Watched a bloke in an 32 ton lorry driving fast through a small 20mph speed limited village whilst clearly holding a mobile phone to his ear. If he had killed someone - OK by you, he was just playing on his phone, wasm't trying to kill anyone

 

[Odds]

They're so lenient because there's no room for them and all the druggies you want in jail as well. Make your mind up.

 

[motorbiking]

so you see nothing wrong in Grenfell as no one intended it to happen?

Reckless conduct is not dissimilar to intent. Watched a bloke in an 32 ton lorry driving fast through a small 20mph speed limited village whilst clearly holding a mobile phone to his ear. If he had killed someone - OK by you, he was just playing on his phone, wasm't trying to kill anyone

I was explaining it, not condoning it.

Should A) get the same sentence as C)? They both made the same mistake. Both failed to look. Just different outcomes, largely down to luck.

If I set out to murder somebody and fail it should be more serious and punished more severely, than if it was an accident

 

[footprints]

"We cannot send people to prison as there are no places"
Here's a radical idea, build more prisons and recruit ex service personnel to staff them!

 

[carmanmemoranda]

"We cannot send people to prison as there are no places"
Here's a radical idea, build more prisons and recruit ex service personnel to staff them!

Yep, why didn't they ?

 

[motorbiking]

Long sentences and locking up a larger %age of the population works in America... oh wait, it doesn't.