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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask why drunk driving sentencing depends on whether or not someone got hurt/killed.

51 replies

ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:20

So I stagger out of the pub utterly pissed and set off to drive home.

Meanwhile Bob Jones is walking home from work.

As our paths intersect I kill Bob through dangerous driving.

I get 10 years in jail.

But what if Bob bumps into Bill on his way out of the office and sets off 5 mins later.

Now Bob and I fail to cross paths and Bob lives!

I am caught by the police and spectacularly fail a breath test.

I get 6 months in jail.

AIBU to expect that given my actions were identical in both cases, I should be just as culpable in both cases, and should in fact receive the same sentence?

OP posts:
AMumInScotland · 22/03/2013 12:24

If you were Bob's partner/parents would you not want his death to affect the sentence at all? I think I'd feel my loved one's death was being treated as "unimportant" if you got the same punishment either way.

hermioneweasley · 22/03/2013 12:26

It's a good question. When I had a collision with a drunk driver, I was very, very lucky to come away with minor injuries because I was driving an extremely safe car. If I had been in my DW's fiesta I would probably be seriously injured or dead. It always seemed strange to me that he got less severe treatment because of the car I choose to drive.

Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:28

I think if it were my family affected I would be horrified by the coincidental nature of the accident.

It is a preventable accident but an accident nonethless.

I would want everyone putting themselves in the position of causing such an accident to suffer the same fate.

At some level I believe every drunk driver is equally culpable in every drunk driving death.

I want them ALL to pay for the damage done.

OP posts:
Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:29

Also what if the person killed had no family? Does that mean the sentencing should be less? Just because there is no one left alive feeling the effects?

OP posts:
SamG76 · 22/03/2013 12:30

YABU - the legal system is a mix of deontological and consequentialist. You could therefore be prosecuted for speeding if you drove (sober) at more than 80 mph, even if you didn't hit anyone, but the punishment would be more severe if you did hit someone.

A purely consequential system wouldn't work, because it would be a defence to anything to show that no-one was hurt, while a purely deontological system would fill the prisons with people who had committed minor breaches of rules. Eg I drive carelessly off without checking the mirror, and get sentenced to 5 years because I could have killed a cyclist, although in fact there wasn't one around. Both extremes are absurd, which is why there is a mixture, so causing death by dangerous driving is a more serious offence than dangerous driving, althought he latter is an offence even if no-one is hurt.

Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:31

hermione sorry to hear you went through that and glad to hear you made it!

I was in a car crash while pregnant caused by a teenager driving a shit heap car with no insurance and no licence.

I feel animosity to everyone doing the same thing - not specifically to the one person who happened to injure me.

OP posts:
OHforDUCKScake · 22/03/2013 12:33

You could equate that to anything though.

Someone is angry and stabs someone, they suffer blood loss but live and get X amount of months in jail/community service.

Someone is angry and stabs someone in the same circumstances but they died of blood loss.

Should they both get the same prisom sentance because they were both angry and weilding a knife?

Absolutely not.

The 6 months in prison, example that you gave, is to deter them from doing it again so's not to kill someone in future.

Otherwise people would be sent to jail for minor things (in comparisson to causing death) and we already have massively over crowded prisons as it is.

Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:34

sam that is a fair point about over crowding.

There is an obvious risk rating to be applied though.

People get things wrong all the time but some things you do wrong are unlikely to lead to injury and some things are FANTASTICALLY unlikely to lead to injury.

And you would not get the same sentence injuring a cyclist through the kind of inattention to detail that everyone manages at some point or another as injuring a cyclist while 5 times over the limit.

OP posts:
Twogoodreasons · 22/03/2013 12:34

What Sam said^

Also, I hate to break it to you - but you don't get 6 moths in prison for a first offence of drink driving. More like a 12 month ban and a fine.

Betrayedbutsurvived · 22/03/2013 12:35

Speaking as someone who's daughter was very badly injured by a drunk driver then I couldn't agree with mum in Scotland more. The driver in DDs case got 18 months for dangerous driving and 6 months for drunk driving which was the absolute maximum he could be given, ( I know, but that's a whole other debate). We were comforted by the fact that he was dealt with more "severely" than a person I work with who was the same amount over the limit ( double) but didn't have an accident. To me all drink drivers should be banned for life full stop, and sentances massively increased all round. But those that do hurt or god forbid, kill someone should be dealt with as the murderers, ( or attempted murderers) that they are.

Pozzled · 22/03/2013 12:35

I agree, OP. I've always thought that in an ideal world people would be punished for their actions, not for consequences that they have no control over. Every drink driver knows that their actions have the potential to kill - some are just luckier than others.

Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:37

Oh I realise it extends beyond driving....driving just seemed like the obvious scenario to question.

If you turn up at someones house with a gun and the intent to commit murder but are intercepted before you get there, why should you have a lesser sentence than if you had carried through?

Are you less dangerous to the community?
Are you less likely to commit the crime in the future?

I would actually imagine that people who kill someone while drunk driving are far LESS likely to do it again than people who got caught but didn't hurt anyone.

OP posts:
Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:38

betrayed but surely all drink drivers are attempted murderers? That is might point!

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Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:39

Would you be less likely to drink drive if you knew being caught would see you facing attempted murder charges?

OP posts:
OHforDUCKScake · 22/03/2013 12:40

ICBENG if the person turns up intending to murder this is very much considered in their sentancing. As opposed to someone who grabbed a gun near to them in an angry rage without planning it.

OHforDUCKScake · 22/03/2013 12:41

Its a moot point. A drink driver is not 'intending to murder'.

It would be 'death by dangerous driving'.

'Intent' and 'murder' dont come into it.

bugdem · 22/03/2013 12:43

Betrayed, they couldn't be treated as murderers as murder is a very specific offence and has a very specific definition which has been developed through common law. Drink driving (and death by dangerous driving) doesn't usually come under that definition which is why the statutory offence is there. although there is a case where the prosecution tried to argue that it did but I don't think they were successful.

Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:45

fair enough...can you have attempted manslaughter?

There should be the same scale of crime with or without victims.

luck should not be a part of deciding whether you should be locked up. Only your actual actions should be a part of that.

OP posts:
OHforDUCKScake · 22/03/2013 12:48

Thats just ridiculous though, you cant be sentancing all the drink drivers at christmas to 4 years in prison for death by dangerous driving.

Where would you put them all?

Especially since it would apply to all offenses.

A punch? That can kill. Where does it end?

Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:48

If you happen to kill someone while doing something that everyone does and no one would view as particularly stupid or unreasonable then you do not get a conviction.

Even though the victim has family and your actions have had dire consequences.

The intent of the person in question is everything in this case.

Why on the flip side is doing something that everyone agrees is stupid unreasonable and risky not enough to get you the conviction even if you happened to get away with it without hurting anyone?

OP posts:
bugdem · 22/03/2013 12:48

But surely crimes where there is an actual identifiable victim deserve greater punishment than those that don't in order to recognise the suffering the victim has undergone? That recognition would be taken away if everyone to the same punishment regardless of their actions as most offences cover such a wide range of behaviours.

Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:48

I for one would like to see less drunk driving at xmas and also less drunk punching.

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Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:49

bug xpost but my point is that there are plenty of cases where there are victims and no blame attached. We don't send that person to jail just to make the victims feel better...

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OHforDUCKScake · 22/03/2013 12:52

Where would you put all these thousands and thousands of extra prisoners?

Original poster
ICBINEG · 22/03/2013 12:53

Ohhh here's a topical one...

If (and I am not saying anyone has) you set fire to the house your 6 kids are sleeping in, is it any less punishable if they didn't die as a result? Or are you just as criminally culpable?

Also noone has answered whether the sentence for death by dangerous driving should be less if your victim happens to have no family.

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