AIBU about being drunk / using a mobile phone while driving

[IceBeing]

Would you get behind the wheel of a car when drunk? Did you know that people have been given jail terms of up to 14 years for killing someone while driving drunk?

Would you use a mobile phone or send a text while driving a car? Did you know people have been given jail terms of up to 14 years for killing someone by texting while driving?

AIBU to think that it is the act of texting, or the act of driving drunk that is the responsibility of driver, and that whether or not their actions actually kill anyone is nothing to do with their judgement in making the original decision to drive dangerously?

AIBU to think there should be an offence of 'attempted death by dangerous driving' that also carries a jail sentence for anyone who deliberately engages in dangerous driving regardless of the fact they happened to have escaped without causing a terrible accident through no particular effort on their part?

My point is that two people who decide to use a mobile phone while driving in the same sort of circumstances should get approximately the same punishment even if one of them is just pulled over, while the other one kills someone. They both made the same decision to do something risk and illegal. The consequences beyond that decision where out of their control

So you support the same for speeding, yes?
Someone caught speeding gets the same custodial sentence as someone who causes a fatal accident by doing the same amount over the speed limit?

And in light of the tragic events in Penge last week, anyone who gets involved in a police chase automatically gets the same prison sentence as if they killed two pedestrians?

spare yup basically I do think that if speed is likely to cause an accident then it should be treated as severely as if it did.

I am not advocating that all incidents of either drink, phone use or speed are equal....so being mildly over the limit and pottering home at 20 mph isn;t the same as raging drunk doing 70 the wrong way up a motorway....similarly texting in a traffic jam isn't the same as texting on a motorway....and driving at 80 on a motorway isn't the same as driving at 90 through a 30 zone.

But you should be treated far more comparably for each of these differing offences regardless of whether you actually happened to trigger an accident or not.

and yes also to police chases. Anyone driving at speed to escape police should be getting a custodial sentence...although the chances are they are up for one anyway given the way they have responded to the police trying to stop them....

Completely with you until the batshit last paragraph. Attempted death by dangerous driving implies both intent and malice. There's a clear distinction in law between things we've done intentionally and things we've managed to do because we were being careless and/or negligent and/or thoughtless. I do believe puniushments for both should be more severe but the way to do that isn't to imply intent.

I think it should come under 'reckless endangerment' and carry and much more serious penalty. I read just this week about a man killed by someone using his phone - he was recently let off a ban as he had been caught multiple times

I'm not sure custodial sentences would work, but lifetime bans should be doled out much easier in my opinion.

gruf fair enough...I actually agree that things are totally different with and without intent.

But as the poster after you points out, if you have been caught and punished many times and presumably have had it carefully explained to you many times also, that using your phone while driving could kill someone...then using you phone while driving is a crime that comes with intent.

Intent to put your own convenience above anyone else's safety....for me that makes it more like dropping a brick off a motorway bridge...or firing a gun into a crowd. Sure you probably won't kill someone...but you know that you might and you still did it!

But yeah - reckless endangerment is already a thing...and maybe phone use should be in that category and the penalties therefore far higher.

fel the problem with life bans..or even temporary bans is that people just ignore them. The punishment for driving while banned seems to be a ban extension - which is mad really, given it has already proven an ineffective punishment.

If people are driving while banned they are uninsured and there cars are usually worthless...so you can't just ban them again, you can't scrap the car as punishment...so you kinda have to lock them up?

lurking urg. That reminds me of cat covers for cots and those socket protectors that actually make sockets more dangerous to children.

I'm glad an actual safe mode for driving exists...just horrified at the existence of the others!

If a lifetime ban is not adhered to, then a custodial sentence should definitely be the next step.

One possibility ..

www.facebook.com/BhamUpdates/videos/1241176492599085/