Speeding red-light jumping driver who almost hit schoolchild fined – but not banned

alansmurphy wrote:

If you are cleared of dangerous driving you should then be charged with careless. Surely that weould stop the "we might not get a conviction" excuse.

There's an "Alternative Verdicts" clause where you can be charged with one offence and be convicted of a lesser charge instead. I think the main issue is that Dangerous Driving and Careless Driving are defined in a very ambiguous way.

He went through the light fully three seconds after it turned red. That is not "a moment's inattention", it's a choice.

Is three seconds enough for it to be "established" though?  And the car seems to be going quite fast - don't forget that by the "incompetence paradox" this is actually a valid defense e.g. "my client was doing 50 (in the 30 zone) so there's no way he could have stopped safely..."

Amber _also_ means Stop, so that's an instruction to stop established for 6 seconds.

TheHighwayCode wrote:

AMBER means ‘Stop’ at the stop line. You may go on only if the AMBER appears after you have crossed the stop line or are so close to it that to pull up might cause an accident

Ah, you're looking at the "paper" version there rather than the unspoken rules - which is what applies in real life.  Amber means "go", red and amber means "Go go go!  The food delivery scooters have already detected the light is about to change by clairvoyance and left!"

Alternatively the "by the time I noticed I couldn't have stopped safely" rule applies.

I don't think many jurors or magistrates would identify with this driving. The filming car shows just how late the sports car was to the lights, and the twitching of the car shows that the car was driving at speed to make the lights before traffic appeared. That was obvious boy racer driving and not a simple mistake.

The other surprise is that traffic had not progressed from the junction in the few seconds. If our racey driver has met himself, it would be no surprise if he had anticipated the green light and set off at speed.

It always intrigues me that it doesn't occur to such drivers that there are others like themselves on the roads and they heavily rely on the compliance of the majority to evade serious consequences.

I have witnessed worse, including overtaking cars to turn left through red lights. This driving is not uncommon, but again, I would suggest most people would not identify with it.

And is why I'm concerned there only seems to be a Death by Dangerous Cycling charge incoming.

Drivers can break the law by being over the limit, speeding, blowing through red lights and only be charged with Careless.

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

And is why I'm concerned there only seems to be a Death by Dangerous Cycling charge incoming.

It's here isn't it?

It is the old problem of words not meaning what they say. We can see that doing something that could easily kill someone, and is clearly a deliberate choice is dangerous by any reasonable dictionary definition, but some law writing moron decided they needed to clarify what dangerous meant by adding the weasel words "far below the standard of" and that was all it needed for the Mr Loopholes to say, "Yes, it was a bit dangerous, but it wasn't FAR below normal driving, it was just a bit below" and unfortunately some High Court accepted that argument and with that precedent destroyed a decade or more of dangerous driving prosecutions.

The appalling thing is that the problem has occurred in full view of the Government and over that time no effort has been made to amend the wording to close the loophole. They recognised the problem with mobile phones, where the issue has been around for less time. All it needs, as far as I can see, is to delete the clarification and simply leave the wording as dangerous driving and if needs be clarify it as any action that could reasonably be seen to endanger people, including the occupants of the vehicle, or property (because the law seems to value property more than people). As an alternative, forget dangerous and simply define it as any action on the road that would be reasonably considered a failure of the driving test at the time of the offence. Aggrevating factors would be the apparent deliberateness of the act (but accidentally doing something, due to, for example, the accursed momentary lapse, should still be considered dangerous).

joe9090 wrote:

Should be a year's outright driving ban + 100 hours community service. Time to really punish shitty driving. 

100 hours working as a crossing guard at that junction.