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news
Parent of child hit by drug driver calls for greater police powers to stop offenders (BBC Breakfast)Parent of child hit by drug driver calls for greater police powers to stop offenders
The father of a child who was struck by a drug driver while riding his bike has called for the police to be given greater powers to immediately suspend the licence of motorists suspected of driving under the influence of drugs.
Six-year-old Noah Herring was cycling to the park on an off-road bike lane with his father James in February 2021 when he was struck by a motorist at 60mph in a 30mph zone.
The driver, Harry Summersgill, was under the influence of a cocktail of cocaine, cannabis and ketamine at the time of the crash on the Yarm Road in Stockton. He later pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court to causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was sentenced to three years in prison. The 24-year-old was also banned from driving for six and a half years.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Noah’s father James recounted the traumatic moments immediately after the crash, which left the young cyclist with serious injuries.
“It was just a big explosion,” he said. “And then a couple of seconds went by, I couldn’t see Noah. And that’s when I went over and I could see him, and I thought that was the last time I was going to see my son – and I wasn’t ready for that.
“He was broken and I couldn’t fix him. Something inside just kicked in and I did everything I could for him.”
At the time of the crash, Summersgill had previously been arrested on two occasions for driving under the influence of drugs.
Under the current system, motorists arrested for suspected drug driving can continue to drive while they await the results of blood tests, something James says must change to prevent further serious and potentially tragic incidents.
He said: “Magistrates will just get a piece of paper telling what the person has and hasn’t done. Whereas police officers see this day in and day out.
“I think if the police had more power to do something about it on the spot – revoke that licence or suspend that licence – that’s the fastest way to do things.”
Earlier this month the government launched a public consultation on the creation of a high-risk offender scheme for drug drivers, that would include a rehabilitation course and a requirement for medical clearance before a convicted drug driver can regain their licence, which James describes as “a step in the right direction”.
“Drug driving ruins lives,” he said. “I believe the more information, help and support out there, the more chance we have to stop drug drivers.”
> Drug driver who killed five cyclists jailed for at least 16 years
40 percent of people arrested for drug driving have been convicted before, according to Mike Barton, the former Chief Constable of Durham Constabulary, who said it was a “miracle” that Noah survived after being struck at 60mph.
“People don’t realise that cars and vehicles are weapons, and people see it as a right that they can drive their car and be cocooned in it,” Barton told BBC Breakfast. “But of course it’s really dangerous and you’ve seen that [with the incident involving Noah].
“It’s only in the last few years that the law has changed so drug driving is an actual offence in itself – it only came in in 2012.
“From a standing start, the police now prosecute 10,000 people a year for drug driving. So it’s a remarkable rise over the last ten years.
“But of course, more needs to be done, and the big problem with drug driving is finding that 40 percent of the people who are convicted of it have been convicted before.
“I think if we just rely on convictions, that’s not going to solve the problem. I think there’s got to be something wider than that.
“That’s why the government is talking about rehabilitation courses. If people don’t go on a drink driving rehabilitation course, they’re two to three times more likely to reoffend than those who do attend the course. So there’s no doubt that drink driving rehabilitation courses work. The problem is that the government hasn’t been able to come up with a curriculum for the drug driving course, because it’s a bit trickier because people are addicted to drugs.”
Barton agreed with James’ call to increase the speed at which decisions are made concerning drug drivers, but noted that the current system, along with a lack of financial resources in a number of police forces, provides a barrier to immediate action.
He continued: “So what’s been done outside the criminal justice system is something called ‘Operation Revoke’. If the police suspect that somebody’s got mental health issues, a medical condition, or drug dependency, then the police can get that evidence together, send it to the DVLA, and they can then revoke that person’s licence after due process. But, sadly, that takes months.
“While James was talking about the need for immediacy, which I agree with, at the moment the things that are being done take time.”
The former Chief Constable also pointed out that drug tests are undertaken by the private sector, costing, according to Barton, £16 for a roadside saliva test to be conducted and £400 for it to be tested.
He said: “In some police forces which are short of cash there may be a fiscal reason why they’re not doing as many drugs tests as they might have done”.
Fortunately, despite suffering serious injuries in the crash, Noah, now eight, is fully recovered and is back riding his bike.
“There’ll hopefully be a lot more bike riding in the future for us,” his dad said. “Cycling was a massive part of my life and hopefully it will be a big part of Noah’s.
“Noah’s my hero – no kid should go what he went through. But he went through it, and he’s had a lot of support and he supported us. And he’s back to being a happy little child again.”
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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It sounds like a question from Ian Walker's motornormativity paper. Is it OK to dismember a (car|bike) when it is left in an inconvenient location?
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Furry dice and an air freshener for your helmet.
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20 comments
Hmm... 3 problems here as i see it: a) where could we find a large cohort of existing drugs users? b) how could we make it safe for them to perform the tests while on drugs c) how can we record and measure the results?
Nope - can't think of a way to make all those happen.
Nothing is impossible
> Katie Price?
Ouch! Poor woman, people will be comparing her to George Michael next. Or (insert extremely long list of notable people busted for drink / other drug driving).
I'm sure some self-sacrificing volunteers could be found - maybe even in this forum?
Anyway I call "nonsense" on the statement - I find that studies of this have even been carried out by e.g. the DfT in the UK.
I think w'd have a decent deterrent if we actually made an example of celebrities and "role models" with decent sentences for dangerous driving. They always seem to get away with community service, or a small pointless fine.
I think w'd have a decent deterrent if we actually made an example of celebrities and "role models" with decent sentences for dangerous driving
Whereas the truth is that the police are heading in the opposite drection- Lancashire at least. OpSnapLancs has been effectively abandoned, but without any announcement. There have been no responses now for almost 3 weeks, so cases like this are again (this was the previous standard Lancashire Constabulary tactic) being just ignored. This is Renault Clio PE69 OOC at about 50 mph on the road east out of Blackpool
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0016n1k/look-north-north-east-and...
This link might work. It was on our local news last night. The actual report starts at 60 seconds in. It's a bit harrowing.
"The problem is that the government hasn’t been able to come up with a curriculum for the drug driving course, because it’s a bit tricker because people are addicted to drugs.”
The problem is that people are addicted to driving! Magistrates should give lifetime bans to people drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol. I know people are going to say but they'll drive anyway, and that maybe true, but they will incur a much stricter penalty (prison I would hope) if they do so. We abandoned our car two years ago and many people don't drive or can afford to run a car, and yet it's not a problem, there are other methods of transport. For some reason judges seem to think that people can't live without the use of a car and that banning them from driving is in some way depriving them of their human rights. In reality I think they are just projecting their own driving addiction.
Hear hear! It really is seriously habit forming. It may make you feel powerful and popular to others when you're younger. But it loses its appeal over time and it's not great for your health either. It's also insidious. We end up basing our lives and designing our environments and laws around the motor vehicle without even noticing it.
Don't bogart that jeep my friend...
And yet they can do one for alcohol (presumably?).
I went through a period of mental illness last year due to extreme sleep deprivation. One of the symptoms was daytime hallucinations to the extent of not knowing which were real and which were fiction. The most horrific and recurring image was of my teenage son mangled and broken following a RTC. Even though not real it was utterly horrific and still gives me occasional night terrors. For Noah's Father or indeed any parent to go through the trauma of this scenario, let alone witness the event should be more than enough reason for drink, drug and other reckless driving behaviours to be cracked down on far harder than they are currently. Instant loss of licence at the roadside for a failed test pending court proceedings and the ability to permanently remove driving privileges for persistent offenders.
Really sorry to hear that, Munge. You're (getting) better now?
Back to swivel eyed loon normalcy.
I consider I got off lightly and it was relatively easy to fix, but I can understand why mental illness is lethal to so many who suffer from one form or another.
Not convinced that issuing a driving ban to someone who had been driving 'under the influence of a cocktail of cocaine, cannabis and ketamine' on multiple occasions is going to make the slightest bit of difference
Not unless that driving ban is enforced using four brick walls.
God forbid we should infringe on his human rights! That would be a tragedy and bring the world to a shuddering halt. Enough now.
Agreed. Might be better to revoke their insurance and block any additional insurance on their car. Then at least they show up on an ANPR check without having to stop and check the driver,
The ANPR system does have inherent weaknesses in so far as it will only highlight a car with no valid insurance policy/MOT/VED. If a car registration has a valid insurance policy linked to it, as far as ANPR was concerned it would not be flagged. It's only once a vehicle is stopped and the driver is checked against the insurance policy that discrepancies can be found.
Obvioulsy VED and MOT are much easier for the system to flag, because its an either or situation.
Which is why so many drivers are able to get away with driving without valid insurance. The car can have a policy but they are not insured to drive under that policy.
The most immediate effective action would be to impound the car. Then let bureaucracy take its usual slow course.
I'm guessing the car will magically prove to belong to some innocent third party who will plead that they only lent the car that once, never suspecting their friend was a druggy. So the release process needs to be sufficiently onerous, cumbersome and prone to half-day closure and staff-shortage delays that they never make the same mistake again.
I was doing some work a month or so ago that involved some legal stuff about vehicle ownership in Canada, over there it seems the owner has a legal responsibility to ensure that anyone to whom they lend their vehicle (this applies to on road, off road and snowmobiles) is a fit and legal person to drive it and won't use it under the influence of drink or drugs. There's even a government website where one can check a potential user for DUIs etc. If a person is found DUI the same vehicle impoundment protocols and recovery fees apply whether it's their vehicle, borrowed from a friend or relative or indeed their employer's vehicle. As with many things I've found in Canadian road law, we'd do well to take a leaf or two from their book.
IIRC didn't our Govt recently decide it was more cost effective to privatise all of the previously public sector forensic labs...