Lifetime driving bans?

[LovelyBitOfHam]

How would people feel about harsher driving bans alongside sentencing for drivers who aren’t safe?

After the dreadful news this week of the sentencing of the drunk driver who killed two at 141mph, I read he had been banned for around 20 years, which came as a surprise as it seemed like a long time.

Equally, Im also surprised when people who’ve caused accidents, injuries and death due to driving without care and attention or under the influence are given menial bans, like 12 months.

I know many are reliant on cars (and I’m from an area with poor public transport provision) but I have always considered driving to be a privilege and never a right.

Personally, I think automatic lengthy bans (as in 5 years or more) should be in place for any and all drink or drug drivers and the most egregious cases should lose the right to drive forever.

Too many lives are lost and changed by motorists and nothing seems to be done about it.

For what it’s worth I can (but don’t) drive.

You mean crimes, calling them offences minimises what they are.

Home breathalyser tests are cheap and freely available.

This is interesting because when growing up, my parents wouldn’t have so much as half a shandy and drive afterwards. It was as simple as that.

So as an adult I’ve always been a bit taken aback by how common it is for someone to have a pint (or two) after work and drive home.

I believe Scotland has a much lower limit in force which acts as a deterrent for this sort of driving, which I would embrace.

I'd like a lifetime driving ban for anyone on their phone while driving. Taking passports would be a bonus.

Another vote for penalizing people by confiscating passports.

I think many people forget you're really in charge of a death machine and it should be treated as such and harsh consequences given for it's misuse.

Yes, I never drive next day (i am also scottish but live in england) which means I am absolutely shocked on what some people think it's OK to drive on (that day and morning after)
I have seen threads where people are drinkingba bottle of wine at night and think they are OK to drive at 7am.
I had a mate that consistently went to the pub at lunchtime and always had 2 pints as he had calculated this was OK.

All I am saying is do these people deserve to permanently lose their licence? That seems harsh when it is only some education that is required. These people genuinely think they are OK to drive.
We need a proper awareness campaign.

Yes I looked into them and apparently they are not very accurate
May give people a false sense of security and wham!!! lifetime ban due to inaccurate home breathalyser.
Prefer just to not drive the day after drinking.

I suggest that because the UK was the first country to have a blood alcohol limit we have one that is higher than most.

Given the changes in both what we now know about the affects of alcohol and the advances in testing technology iy is time to revisit it.

The fact that people can evade driving bans by claiming hardship makes me furious. Driving should be treated as a privilege, not a right, and if you need your licence to deliver groceries to your parents (as that arsehole Ian Brown claimed) or whatever, its up to you to keep it, not the general public to have to put up with your shit and dangerous behaviour.

I'd vote for this!

I don't think the passport thing would work. So many people carry or are Eligible to carry two passports.

Easy enough for there to be a banning list and now you have to give advance passenger information much easier to enforce.

I would support a lower limit. I would also test many parents on the school run as I think some would fail a lower limit.

This thread has made me ponder whether I was lied to.
I went out with a bloke via online dating after my divorce. After I had been seeing him for a while he told me he had a five year driving ban plus 120 hours of community service because he had fallen asleep at the wheel and wrote his car off on a motorway. He said he had been working very long hours with no rest and the police used his work records to prove he would have been unfit to drive. No drink or drugs involved and nobody hurt or any other vehicle involved.
Reading this thread has made me think that considering the pathetically short bans and limited punishments given for actually hurting other people by dangeous/ reckless driving this bloke seems to have got a fairly hefty sentence so makes me wonder if he was telling me the full truth.

Car drivers are not always car owners. I'd be pretty peeved if my car was nicked and then got crushed because the thief was done for speeding.

Passports wouldn't work. My parents drove for decades, but didn't have passports. It might be more unusual these days not to have a passport, but it's certainly not unknown.

I wish there were more lifetime bans.

A friend of my daughter's was left severely brain damaged and paralysed by a lorry driver who drove into her family's car at about 60mph when they had just pulled in on the hard shoulder. He will be able to drive again in a few years' time.

AFAIK in Victoria (Australia) if your car is used by someone else who plays the fool with it while you woint get it crushed first time you will have to have a discussion with The Police about how you are going to stop other drivers playing the fool with it in future

You have not really thought that through... it would mean they could never be a passenger in any car too. And implanting a chip is a medical procedure. And no criminal is subject to being forced to have one regardless of what they have done.

Not from me.
If you have no driving license, you can still get around via public transport/favours.
Say you have family abroad... confiscating passports would have a huge detrimental affect. You would not be able to fly out in case there is an emergency.
And I know people will come back and say you should have thought of that before you did xyz... but we are all one simple reckless mistake away from being a criminal.

Aa long as there’s alcohol and drugs in the world, and as long as there’s foolish people indulging themselves, there will tragic consequences.
And therein lies the rub.

Nah, you've not thought that through at all.

So?
Skype them.

A lot of cars are now keyless ignition. They rely on a chip being present in the car to start... you don't have to be in the driver seat.

So a passenger with an implanted chip that blocks this signal (somehow), could no longer get taxis, get a lift from anyone etc. Maybe even get on a bus, or be picked up in a ambulance or police car.

That is batshit.

I agree. Those poor pilots who were killed by the lorry driver- he shouldn't be allowed to drive again!