I have no knowledge of this case but I am going to say that the CPS did not bring any charges.
I only say this because why else would DVD raise the matter in the backroom?
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On the basis of the Hart case, I would expect a charge of causing death by dangerous driving. I often wonder why the unforseeable consequences of an offence have such a big effect on the charge and the penalty but it seems that is the way things work.
If he has been so charged and is found guilty, I hope the court in sentencing distinguishes between careless on the part of a driver who is otherwise behaving properly, and the wilful recklessness of a speeding car thief whose action has the same result.
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OK then here it comes:
CPS would question was the driving of A such that it fell FAR BELOW what would have been expected of a competent driver AND it would be obvious to a competent careful driver that driving in that was would be dangerous,
AND
the driving of A was a cause of the death of another person. This must be a cause but need not be the sole one,
THEN
they would mark up the offence of causing death by dangerous driving.
BUT
if A's driving was such that it fell far below the standard of a reasonable prudent and competent driver in the circumstances of the case
THEN
they would mark up as careless driving.
The original post is a true account of an accident which resulted in A being aligned before a local Crown Court charged with causing death by dangerous driving/ careless driving.
I think this indicates the fairness of the British justice system as the Jury found A Not Guilty of causing death etc, but guilty of careless driving. He was fined 500 pounds and disqualified for 6 months. In his summing up the Judge stated " It is unfortunate that the consequences from what happened was out of proportion to the error".
Just wonder if current public concern on deaths caused by accidents led to CPS running the death by dangerous. They can claim that they tried for the conviction and the Courts made the final decision. Justice not only done but seen to be done?
A most unusual case which is why I thought I would air it.
Re the coach driver. There is inattention - a prudent driver doesn't go along clippiong road signs etc. - so there is careless driving. I do not entirely agree that this was a metter for a Court but today we live in a climate when it is the letter of the law that applies. I prefered the old days when it was the spirit of the law that applied.
DVD
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I can never agree with the jailing of somebody for a mistake, no matter what the consequences. Fair enough if someone is deliberately behaving in a dangerous manner, racing or trying to outrun police, or is drunk. But to sentence an otherwise law abiding citizen to spend years in the company of hardened and violent criminals for an error of judgement, as in the case of Gary Hart, is little more than an act of spiteful revenge to appease the mob.
We have all made errors of judgement on the road, ones that could have cost someone their life had circumstances been different.
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Quite - provided that the "mistake" is not repeated too often.
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But... when they get rid of the jury??
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OK, but let us now vary the chain of events.
Driver stops his car on the hard shoulder for an urgent call of nature (ok we know not sufficient reason) and decides to give himself some privacy by going thro the fence into the adjacent field (not being aware of horse), intentionally breaks the fence, and the horse escapes. Same result as above.
What is he guilty of then?
pmh (was peter)
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Well that does suprise me DVD. Thought we would be looking at a " Failing to have proper control " at the most! Or am I being to cynical?
CPS do seem to be uping the anti. Not before time.
Fullchat
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Tom, Gary Hart didn't just make a momentary mistake. He set off on along journey, towing a heavy load behind an vehicle likely to be unstable at motorways speeds, after staying up all night.
Sure, it was a momentary mistake which triggered the accident. But some mistake was very likely as a consequence of his earlier, deliberate actions.
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Agree with you there NW but Tom's point is still the same in general isn't it? And that's what I agree with.
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Adam
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Adam, I think that Tom's point is rather different. He seems to overlooking the fact that GH's earlier, deliberate actions created the conditions in which that mistake was more likely.
As the legal test of dangerous driving requires, it would have been "obvious to a competent careful driver that driving in that way would be dangerous".
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No you misunderstand me NW. I meant I agree with you with regards to the rail crash and Gary Hart but agree with Tom's point in general that throwing people in jail for a genuine mistake isn't the way to go.
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Adam
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If you saw the TV programme on Hart not too long ago, you will know that he still denies that he fell asleep. He insists that something went wrong with the vehicle. I don't know whether the vehicle was unstable or not and I imagine it would have been very difficult to confirm if anything did go wrong with it, after being hit by the train. He certainly won't be the first to have driven in the morning, after having little or no sleep.
One thing I fail to understand is, why the approach, on a motorway, to a railway line, should have no crash barrier to stop a vehicle from ending up where Hart's did. There are some real villains who have cause death by dangerous/reckless driving and who have not been received any worse prison sentences than Hart. The whole programme's approach was quite antagonistic towards him, in my ipinion.
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I was about to make the same point - it was never proven that Hart fell asleep, and the contention that he did was based IIRC on evidence that he had spent several hours during the night on the phone and therefore must have been tired. The judge likened his behaviour to that of someone choosing to drive while under the influence of alcohol - but he wasn't, and only Hart, who said that he needed very little sleep, can know whether he was too tired to drive or not.
I should be extremely worried if I was involved in an accident like this that there would be an assumption of negligence followed by a hunt for supporting evidence, given the apparent need for someone to be blamed and punished for everything bad that happens.
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We've all driven when tired. I've worked a 24 hour shift and driven home afterwards, nightworkers will get up on Monday morning and spend the day awake then work a full shift and drive home the following day without any sleep in between. The world isn't a perfectly ordered place where we all work 9-5 and get eight hours a night. Sometimes something goes wrong and the consequences are terrible, but life can never be risk free.
I too saw the recent programme on Gary hart and it was a one sided hatchet job designed to try and make him grovel and publicly humiliate him.
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Hands up all those people who can put hand on heart and guarantee they have never driven whilst over the limit? I can't. And I am talking morning after here, not driving home from the pub.
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Hands up all those people who can put hand on heart and guarantee they have never driven whilst over the limit? I can't.
If you were over-the-limit, and caused a massive fatal accident as a result, would you be complaining that it was all terribly unfair that the court threw the book at you?
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If you were over-the-limit, and caused a massive fatal accident as a result, would you be complaining that it was all terribly unfair that the court threw the book at you?
No, would not have a leg to stand on. Would just hope that would be treated differently from someone who had walked out the pub straight into the driver's seat.
If it was my child who was killed as a result, I would be understandably livid. But of all drink driving offences, it is the one that I have some sympathy for, obviously depending on full details. If they had been binge drinking till the early hours and then got in a car 4 hours later, they deserve to be shot. However, if they had a meal and a couple of bottles of wine, had their full 8 hours sleep and were still over the limit after that, then I would probably be a bit more understanding. It is this scenario that I was referring to in my earlier post.
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Hands up all those people who can put hand on heart and guarantee they have never driven whilst over the limit? I can't. And I am talking morning after here, not driving home from the pub.
[::Lifts hands up into the air::]
And I can say that with absolute certainty. I can also say with certainty that I have never driven with alcohol in my system.
And no, I am quite emphatically not teetotal. I just keep the two separate, and following many years when it was necessary to drive to/from most events, I have learnt to enjoy myself without alcohol when necessary.
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I think that there is overwhelming public acceptance that drink driving totally unacceptable, however, I don't think the same could be said for driving whilst too tired.
Can you imagine ringing in to the office and telling your boss that you are not fit to drive into work because you didn't sleep the night before. Several years ago, I suffered from clinical depression after my first marriage ended, and I didn't get any meaningful sleep for weeks. I really wasn't fit to drive, yet it was never suggested by my employer that I should stay off work, nor by my GP, who also refused to give me any medication to help in any way at all, for several weeks, even though I told him, on several occasions, that I wasn't sleeping. I went into work, basically, because I thought it was expected of me.
I should mention that driving was a requirement of my job, at the time.
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machika, sorry to hear of the difficult circumstances ... but if you had an accident, I think that your employer might have had a few questions to answer.
(GPs are teribly unhelpful abt this sort of thing. They sem to have gone in a three deacdes from throwing sleeping pills around like lollipops, to witholding them until their patient has flipped enirely from sleep deprivation, as happened to a friend of mine in similar circumstances)
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machika, sorry to hear of the difficult circumstances ... but if you had an accident, I think that your employer might have had a few questions to answer.
I very nearly did have an accident, on at least two occasions that I can remember. It was a terrible time in my life and I am convinced that there must be thousands of drivers on the roads, who are suffering from sleep deprivation, for one reason or another, who really shouldn't be driving.
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I think BobbyG's point is that even when we are not wilfully misbehaving, it is difficult for many of us (patently not Patently) to be *certain* that we have not transgressed.
In the same way, how do you *know* what is "too tired" and what isn't?
Please correct me Bobby if I have put the wrong interpretation on this.
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I think BobbyG's point is that even when we are not wilfully misbehaving, it is difficult for many of us (patently not Patently) to be *certain* that we have not transgressed.
In the same way, how do you *know* what is "too tired" and what isn't?
Please correct me Bobby if I have put the wrong interpretation on this.
Manates, yes that was basically what I was saying.
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And I can say that with absolute certainty. I can also say with certainty that I have never driven with alcohol in my system.
Patently, very interested in how you can make the above statement. How do you ensure this is the case? How do you know that you have no alcohol in your system from say, the previous night?
Believe me, I am not being cynical, I would like to understand what calculations etc you do as I believe medical research basically says that bodies absorb and deal with alcohol in different ways.
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Patently, very interested in how you can make the above statement. How do you ensure this is the case? How do you know that you have no alcohol in your system from say, the previous night?
A fair question.
It assists that I do not have a great attachment to alcohol and thus tend not to return from parties in an utterly incapable state. Nevertheless, I do like the stuff in many of its forms and thus there are some "mornings after".
The trick is simply to arrange that either the nights before fall on a Friday or a Saturday, or to limit things to levels that will clearly have been eliminated by the morning. The usual rule of thumb is 2 hours per unit (I understand) - so if you're not up late then you have a good 8 hours in hand, or 4 units. Be conservative and it is reasonable to expect that 2 units have gone by the time I need to drive.
I'd be very surprised indeed if there was anything left at 7:30am of a small(ish) single malt that was finished by 9:30 the previous night.
Tiredness worries me far more, I should say.
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Gary Hart may, or may not, have fallen asleep at the wheel. But up until that point, he was apparently minding his own business driving legally along the motorway. Having found himself on the railway line, he made a telephone call in an attempt to avert disaster.
About a week after the programme about Gary Hart, I saw another programme, probably one of those traffic cops ones, which featured the following item: My memory isn't perfect, but the following details are very close to what was said: Young man, didn't have a licence (old enough, I believe, but hadn't passed test, or was disqualified?), an hour after having taken his state-provided Methadone slug, goes driving a car. He has no insurance, the car is untaxed, might possibly have been stolen. At well in excess of the prevailing 20 mph speed limit, he runs down a boy about 9 years old. The young man then gets out of the car and runs away.
The boy is killed.
Fortunately the young man is caught. But he got something like a £200 fine, a useless driving ban, and 100 hours community service.
Gary Hart was sentenced to 5 years in prison.
I can't square it.
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I can't square it.
You are not alone.
A speeding offence, for example, is likely now to attract a higher overall penalty than shoplifting. Now, both are serious or potentially serious offences, but one displays an intention to act criminally whereas the other often does not.
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The boy is killed. Fortunately the young man is caught. But he got something like a £200 fine, a useless driving ban, and 100 hours community service. Gary Hart was sentenced to 5 years in prison. I can't square it.
This kind of offence is exactly the kind I was trying to make a comparison with in an earlier post. They are regularly reported on in the media and frequently end in the death of some innocent bystander. They also seem to end up with the offender receiving unbelieveably lenient sentences.
In contrast, Gary Hart was treated very severely and I think it was because of the very serious and high profile consequences of his accident. The accusations are still being made that he is callous and uncaring.
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I can never agree with the jailing of somebody for a mistake, no matter what the consequences. Fair enough if someone is deliberately behaving in a dangerous manner, racing or trying to outrun police, or is drunk. But to sentence an otherwise law abiding citizen to spend years in the company of hardened and violent criminals for an error of judgement, as in the case of Gary Hart, is little more than an act of spiteful revenge to appease the mob. We have all made errors of judgement on the road, ones that could have cost someone their life had circumstances been different.
If you think of your car as a dangerous weapon, like a loaded gun, the use of which requires a certain level of competence and responsibility, then perhaps you wouldn't be so forgiving.
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My car is not a dangerous weapon, it's purpose is to transport me. Neither is my gas cooker, but making a mistake when using either can be fatal to myself and others. People don't make mistakes on purpose, but they happen and we have to accept that and accept that there will occasionally be terrible consequences. Prison is for deliberate law breakers who commit a crime knowing it to be wrong and knowing what the penalties are if they are caught, not for the unfortunate or the stupid. There are other ways of dealing with them.
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It doesn't take skill or responsibility to light a gas cooker. It does to drive a car. That's the difference.
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So a person who turns the gas on, forgets to light it and blows half the street up is ok, while someone who makes a mistake in a car and kills somebody is a criminal?
I don't see it that way.
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Cheers Tom. Taken some time to get to the gas oven so I could have my punch line:
Skydiver dropping at high rate of knots pulls frantrically at D ring which doesn't work. Neither does the emergency shute. As he drops shooting upwards comes Paddy in a state of disarray.
" Know anything about parachutes" the Skydiver shouts across to Paddy as they pass.
"Notta ting" replies Paddy,"Know anyting about Gas Ovens"
.... and if that doesn't kill this thread nowt else will.
DVD
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DVD,
this discussion has covered DD to Gas apliances. Now, back to the thread, what would/could/was A charged with?
Regards,
John R @ Home
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This thread will stay on motoring or get locked. Your choice, people.
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John
See above at 5.12.04 15.22
DVD
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What was the horse charged with?
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You may jest Renault but are you aware that horses have to have Passports now (EEC Ruling) I kid you not.
tinyurl.com/5z788
So, in your vein, it didn't have one, so was an illegal immigrant and after treatment deported. Last heard of in a gastronomical outlet under the non de plume - hors d'oeuvre.
DVD
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Cars are not dangerous - drivers are!
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\"Nothing less than 8 cylinders will do\"
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Ooops, I fear I might have deleted something.
Sorry about that, I do hope that you can forgive me for the loss of motoring oriented, serious, non-trivial, non-tedious, non-ridiculous debate.
Of course, in the unlikely event that anybody was writing tedious, boring, irrelevant, pedantic, mindless drivel; that might have got deleted as well.
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