# Why has this guy been sentenced to jail? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 2, 2009, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332 "2009-10-02T12:30:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Xan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ac8455/32.png) [@Xan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xan)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/101 "2009-10-05T00:36:29Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > So paying money and loosing a license is the appropriate reaction to neglience that killed another person? Would you say the same thing if this was caused by a gun? (Oh, I forgot: guns are holy right in the US.) It’s really surreal, considering how quickly people end up in the US in prison or the electric chair just because they have a life insurance on their spouse … So the family’s debts go away because the defendant is in jail? ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/102 "2009-10-05T17:30:59Z")
This person was not charged with the crime of causing death by negligent driving, not really surprising since there is no such charge on the UK statute book. There is such a thing as \* careless driving\* but the penalties imposed do not amount to a prison terms. This was a criminal charge of \* causing death by dangerous driving\* which is a pretty high standard to prove. To prove this charge, the court has to be satisfied that the danger was apparent and obvious, that the defendant knew or should have known their action was so dangerous as to be likely to lead to death, this is not negligence, which generally requires an omission, this is a an active crime it is commissioned through some deliberate act. This is not usually a charge that relates to not seeing something, a failure to observe for example, and to cap it all the defendant also has to kill someone through their deliberate and dangerous act, it is not negligence by any meaning of the word. This driver did not make a common human error, I have driven around that area and you can get your foot down on the same part of the road, however when you reach the junction concerned, you have on and off ramps and you would have to be a total idiot to drive at 120mph around there. You have to realise that although our motorways are the equivalent of your freeways, they are usually not as wide, they have more curves, more junctions and traffic densities will be higher. It is against the law here to overtake on the inside, to do this in an environment where this is not done, and to do it at over 50mph above the speed limit is lunacy. He will actually serve 16 months in prison, he will probably get his tag and possibly early release, there is every chance that this 21 year old will actually serve 14 months in prison, which isn’t much for the death of another person. > **[Causing death by dangerous driving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causing_death_by_dangerous_driving)** > > Causing death by dangerous driving is a statutory offence in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as Hong Kong. It is an aggravated form of dangerous driving. In the UK, it was created by section 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (as substituted by the Road Traffic Act of 1991), and in Hong Kong it was created by section 36 of the Road Traffic Ordinance. > Section 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (as substituted by section 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1991), creates the offences of ... [http://www.brake.org.uk/facts/death-by-dangerous-driving-guidelines-on-prosecution](http://www.brake.org.uk/facts/death-by-dangerous-driving-guidelines-on-prosecution) Look at the second link, it gives the Crown Prosecution Service guidelines on when and how the charge of causing death by dangerous driving should be prosecuted, quite frankly, if this does not shut up some of this gyuy’s apologists I don’t know what will. We do not seek prison terms for trivial human errors, you lot have only seen a part of the total, you were not in court, and you have no idea if this person has a previous record of speeding or other motor related offences, it is very rare for this charge to be successful due to the stringent standards applied and this tends to be reserved for the very worst excesess of idiot drivers, seems some of you do not have much faith in the common sense of our legal system. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/103 "2009-10-05T17:48:17Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > It’s really weird to see how many of the hard core “we need to kill this bastard/ Let him rot in prison/ I hope he gets raped in prison as punishment” Americans suddenly have a deeply compassionate and practical side for a criminal. Which Americans in this thread fit the description you just gave? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/104 "2009-10-05T18:36:10Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Of course it is, esp. in busy roads in Europe, with lots more cars than the open highways. You have only fractions of a second to react at that speed, which is too fast for human mistakes. I’m not entirely certain what you mean by “fractions of a second to react”; the aim is always to be being able to stop comfortably within the distance you know will remain clear. Stick to this golden rule and you’ll be fine. I am not advocating 120mph down a busy high street. > [@constanze](#): > > I don’t know what you mean with those laws. Could you elaborate? Do you mean that in the UK and other European countries. you are required to have a license to operate a car and an insurance because of the inherent risk? If you are caught not having them, you will be punished even if you didn’t cause an accident. I have no issue with requirements for licence and insurance. What I cannot understand is that are specific offences for causing death while unlicenced or being uninsured; a fairer solution to my mind is punish the lack of insurance/licence, and if the driving that lead to the death was dangerous to prosecute for death by dangerous driving. If careless prosecute for the careless driving. This was the situation before the (very) recent amendments to the road traffic act by the way. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/105 "2009-10-05T19:11:46Z")
The issue of a lack of licence and insurance has come about due to the reality that these are most likely to involved in serious RTA’s. Not only do they kill and maim more, much more often than fully legal drivers, but their lack of insurance creates a burden for all legal drivers due to the insurance contingency fund which compensates the injured of the uninsured One reason for this is poor previous road behaviours, banned drivers have a habit of getting on the road whilst still banned, and of course if their licence to drive has been revoked, it is not possible to get insurance. Once your licence has been returned, or a ban completed, insurance rates are very high, to such a level that these drivers simply don’t bother with the expense, yet these are the ones who are most likely to kill. its almost a circular argument, get banned for bad driving, insurance goes up, so you don’t bother with it - and your driving does not improve because of the ban either. In an attempt to provide some deterrance to the highest risk drivers on our roads, the offence of dangerous driving etc without licence and/or insurance were created. The fact is, the lowest risk drivers are the ones who do insure their cars, and do not speed etc, and the highest risk ones are the ones who do not. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Poster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Happy\_Poster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Poster)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/106 "2009-10-05T19:18:48Z")
So it’s entirely a deterrence thing? Fact is the kind of drivers who do this probably aren’t deterred by anything anyway… ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/107 "2009-10-05T19:25:39Z")
Poltics and the public mood are not always swayed by logic, it gives a certain segment of the electorate a nice warm feeling to blame someone for something, and punish them. Single mums, unemployed, lager louts, anyone not like them. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/108 "2009-10-07T20:02:16Z")
> [@glee](#): > > It’s not a ‘minor error’ to stop concentrating on driving. > It’s not a ‘minor error’ to drive a car while drunk. I’d hardly call these two things even remotely comparable. > [@Frylock](#): > > This is what I’m saying. We don’t know that he failed to act with reasonable prudence. Reasonable people prudently adjust things on their dashboard as a matter of course millions of times every day. We don’t know that this guy was doing so _im_prudently. Unless every act of dashboard-fiddling is imprudent. > > To know whether it was imprudent or not, we’d need to know what traffic looked like from his vantage point at the time of the act. We don’t know what it looked like. This is the smartest thing anyone has said in this thread. Thanks. > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > OTOH, he ended a man’s life, leaving 5 children fatherless and a woman without her sworn life-partner. She now has sole responsibility for raising those 5 kids, a task that will not end for years and years. In cases of unintentional wrongdoing like this, I don’t think the random preexisting life conditions of the victim’s family should have any relevance to the sentencing since there is no reasonable way to predict such a thing, and of course no intention of harm. If he happened to kill someone who was antisocial, nobody liked, and had no dependents, would you really give him a lesser sentence? ---
**Author:** ![Charley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/97f17d/32.png) [@Charley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charley)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/109 "2009-10-08T11:23:57Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > This is the smartest thing anyone has said in this thread. Thanks. That was completely arguable even when **Frylock** first posted almost at the beginning of the thread, and certainly so since about post 60 when it was revealed that this man was driving at **more than 50 mph over the speed limit**. Would you care to argue that _this_ still allows us to believe he may have acted ‘with reasonable prudence’? and that this is still a case of ‘unintentional wrongdoing’ ? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/110 "2009-10-08T14:26:00Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#): > > [In this story](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/footballer-jordan-robertson-jailed-after-admitting-causing-fatal-crash-1796612.html), a 21-year-old English soccer player was driving on the motorway on Boxing Day when he crashed into another car, killing a father of five. He later told police he had been changing the song on his MP3 Player which distracted him. Well, was he changing the song by hitting “next selection,” or was he “changing the song” as in searching for, paying for with a credit card, downloading, and installing a new mp3 file? Comedian Emo Phillips once said, “I was driving down the highway one day and leaned over to change the radio. Well, I’d just about gotten the old one out, when…” . ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/111 "2009-10-08T14:41:08Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > if you want to go by the rule by fear of authority route, which is not a route I wish to choose. You don’t? ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/112 "2009-10-08T15:27:03Z")
> [@myskepticsight](#): > > The article says the father was killed but no one else was injured. Were there others in his car? Was he wearing a seat belt? Are there seat belt laws or regulations in the country where the accident took place? How far did the soccer player have to drift or whatever to hit the other car? Did he drive into oncoming traffic? T-bone the father? Hit him from behind? Does anyone have any more specific info on this? If it was something like he was fiddling with something then ended up in oncoming traffic and killed the dude, then yeah he fucked up a lot, go to jail. But personally I’d need more info before I can form an opinion on whether to fuck up a second life or not. For a bit of background, the M1 motorway is a 6-8 lane high-speed, very congested highway, with a speed limit of 70mph (but, let’s face it, with many cars typically travelling at 80 or 90). It’s one of the 3 busiest roads in the country (along with the M6 and M25 motorways) and could be regarded as having very dangerous and stressful driving conditions, compared with most other roads in the country. And yes, we’ve had seat belt regs in the UK for decades ---
**Author:** ![natural](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e19adc/32.png) [@natural](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natural)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/113 "2009-10-08T15:54:25Z")
I can’t help but wonder - what does putting a man in jail accomplish under these circumstances? Would it not be better off having the man working and helping to support the family who’s breadwinner he’s killed? It is not like he is a dangerous killer or a criminal. What good does it do society by making society now support him? And what kind of a job can he expect to get when he is released? The family needs income from a working man and having to pay all that money is punishment alone! ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/114 "2009-10-08T17:31:58Z")
> [@natural](#): > > I can’t help but wonder - what does putting a man in jail accomplish under these circumstances? Part of our criminal system involves letting the public feel that people are getting the appropriate punishment for the crime. If the public feels that people are getting off too lightly, then they are more prone to taking the law in their own hands. Putting someone in jail (you can argue if the term is excessive or not, I don’t really have an opinion on this case) is an important message that killing someone has consequences. The fact that he was speeding 50MPH above the speed limit and changing songs on his iPod make it more important that the punishment is seen to fit the crime. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/115 "2009-10-08T17:33:46Z")
I disagree, he is a dangerous killer, he killed someone with his car by drving at an innappropriate speed, driving aggressively by overtaking on the inside lane - which all UK drivers know is illegal - and to cap it all he was pratting about with his sound system at the time, presumably he thought this was mor eimportant than the life of another human being. That, by definition makes him very dangerous, since it killed a man. He loses his job, and provides an opening for another. The family will recieve an insurance award, which will cover their costs but can never replace the deceased. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/116 "2009-10-08T17:54:13Z")
> [@Charley](#): > > That was completely arguable even when **Frylock** first posted almost at the beginning of the thread, and certainly so since about post 60 when it was revealed that this man was driving at **more than 50 mph over the speed limit**. Would you care to argue that _this_ still allows us to believe he may have acted ‘with reasonable prudence’? and that this is still a case of ‘unintentional wrongdoing’ ? In that case I think the mp3 player thing is a big red herring and a distraction from the real crime, which was the negligent driving style. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332/117 "2009-10-09T17:53:08Z")
My guess is that he told police that he was distracted to make it seem like a chance accident, and he did this to cover up for his speeding and dangerous driving. The MP3 player is not only a diversion, its likely a lie intended to decieve. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-this-guy-been-sentenced-to-jail/512332.md?page=5)