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Palace Of Westminster At Night © Andrew Dunn.jpgWhere is the promised review of road traffic offences?
The Government today announced a raft of new road safety measures arising as a result of its cycle safety review. What we have not yet had is the wide scale review of road traffic offences and sentencing that was first promised in May 2014. A Westminster debate on road justice held earlier this week ended with no further news on when this will be carried out.
According to research by Cycling UK, six out of every seven motorists involved in crashes that result in the death of a cyclist avoid going to jail and only one in three cases sees the driver lose their licence.
However, it is now four years since the government promised to conduct a review of motoring offences and penalties with a view to addressing such shortcomings. Cycling UK calculates that 1,800 people have died on British roads in that time.
The Government eventually announced a consultation in December 2016 on a much more limited set of proposals. These included increasing the maximum penalty for ‘causing death by dangerous driving’ and ‘causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drugs’ from 14 years to life imprisonment.
A report resulting from that consultation expressed concern regarding a lack of clarity about the distinction between “dangerous” and “careless” driving – one of the very issues that had led to calls for a comprehensive review in the first place.
On Tuesday, MPs Ruth Cadbury and John Lamont brought a debate on the matter.
Cadbury said that “the legal framework and our justice system need to send the message that road crime is a real crime.”
Among those to express support was former leader of the Liberal-Democrats, Tim Farron, who said it was “time to stop navel-contemplating and to start acting to protect people’s lives.”
In response to questioning, Rory Stewart, the Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, confirmed the extension to the maximum sentences for ‘causing death by dangerous driving’ and ‘causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drugs’.
He also said that those who get into a vehicle under the influence of drink or drugs” knowingly propel an extremely dangerous weapon.” But regarding any wider review of sentencing, he merely said there was a need to take a “comprehensive approach” alongside the Department for Transport and the Home Office.
Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK’s head of campaigns was unimpressed with the lack of concrete commitments.
“Today we heard an hour and a half of reasoned debate from MPs concerned about the victims of road crime and how the current justice system is failing to deliver just and safe outcomes,” he said.
“Disappointingly, the Government’s response was to repeat an old announcement on increasing sentencing for two offences. There was a complete failure to answer why there has been no wide scale review of road traffic offences and sentencing as promised in May 2014.
“This continued delay lets down victims and compromises road safety for everyone: pedestrians, cyclists, horse-riders and motorists.
“The Minister recognised that dangerous drivers are ‘driving a weapon’ and are a risk to us all, but is not saying why the Government will not review the legislation as called for by MPs from all parties this morning."
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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14 comments
"However, it is now four years since the government promised to conduct a review of motoring offences and penalties with a view to addressing such shortcomings. Cycling UK calculates that 1,800 people have died on British roads in that time."
That's about how many people die on the roads every year. I think you, and/or Cycling UK must be referring to the number of pedestrians and cyclists killed, which, if I remember correctly, is about 450 a year.
I am sure they are just busy with some other right wing talking point, can't think what it is though.
A scandal, and about average for this government, which despite all the rhetoric, has absolutely no intention of actually doing anything.
Explain to me what Labour has done in the last say, 50 years for cycling?
You keep pointing the finger at the Cons and yet Labour has done precisely fuck all for cycling, my home city of Hull used to be a massive cycling city, it's been under Labour since year dot. Cycling infra, protection of cyclists, enforcement/policing of motorists, nope, absolutely sod all and hence why the city gridlocks every morning and every afternoon and yet cycling is in the doldrums and people get killed and badly hurt regualrly.
A crash on one major arterial route or a bit of snow and the city comes to a standstill in short order..
The Cons are a big bag of shite but don't be pulling the 'this government' crap when it's both parties that have fucked us over!
Where did I say that they had? The evidence for cycling has been there for a long time, and labour didn't do much about it, but that same evidence has become much more compelling over the past ten years, obesity, type 2 diabetes, climate change etc, but this government stubbornly refuses to actually do anything, whilst talking up cycling endlessly.
John Prescott's White Paper was the most far-sighted government proposal about transport ever, and extremely positive about cycling, but apart from giving pensioners a bus pass, it was sunk without trace by that pseudo-tory, Blair.
So yes, it is this government. They are the ones in power now, they know it solves so many of the problems of today's society, but are steafast in their opposition to anything concrete happening. Masters of pro-cycling propaganda while twiddling their thumbs.
It wasn't labour who promised the review in 2014.
I can't remember Labour being as war-on-the-motoristy as this shower.
But the clincher is always Ernest Marples. The Tories would have to ban cars to reverse the level of shafting they gave the UK's transport legacy under him.
Wasn't Beeching, who was responsible for closing a great deal of the railway network in the sixties, at the time also a director of a road-building company or something like that? No conflict of interest there, then...
That was Marples. When the conflict of interest was raised, he moved the shares in the company to his wife.
He employed Beeching to run his review, so yeah, the Beeching cuts were really the Marples cuts, at the same time as he was trying to cover the country in motorways.
His rattling of prostitutes was uncovered by the Profumo investigation, and he eventually fled the taxman to live overseas. All-round charmer.
OK, thanks.
("Rattling of prostitutes"? - not an expression I think I've ever heard before...
).
I remember Labour under Blair as being more war-in-Iraq than anything else. I'm still waiting for Blair to be tried for his war crimes, but it appears that judges blocked that last year: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/31/tony-blair-prosecution-...
I suspect that Blair is the wrong skin colour and/or nationality for there to be any real will to go after him for instigating an international conflict...
(Similar to how Trump won't be prosecuted for "incitement to..." type offences, and how all those American shooters are always "lone wolves with mental health issues" and never EVER "terrorists").
Skin colour didn't affect whether other people got charged with war crimes or not, so I suspect it's more to do with whether the oil companies made a lot of money or not.
Maybe. Wasn't he at one point setting up a foundation to go and fix the middle east or something, too? (particularly Israel/Palestine - you know: the bits that hadn't already been bombed on his instructions...).
Maybe. Wasn't he at one point setting up a foundation to go and fix the middle east or something, too? (particularly Israel/Palestine - you know: the bits that hadn't already been bombed on his instructions...).
[/quote]
He was appointed, apparently without a shred of irony, Middle East Peace Envoy; even the DM started hating him https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3470445/A-useless-peace-envoy-B...
And he did set up a foundation, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, presumably to train leaders how to attack poorly defended countries with fake evidence. https://institute.global/
I find it utterly incredible and distasteful that he keeps poking his nose into UK politics, having totally shafted the labour party and the country, and he torpedoed John Prescott's Transport White Paper, for which I'll never forgive him, along with Iraq etc.
But enough, this is getting too political for a cycling site.