Desperately sad case.....

[pwa]

I cannot understand why getting caught driving whilst banned does not incur an automatic custodial sentence which automatically increases in length for subsequent offences. That at least removes a danger for a while.

We the public have decided through the ballot box that we can't afford prisons or even an effective police force,and as Cunobelin points out the "there but for the grace of god" etc is prevelant in juries across the land.
The law and it's application stinks and will continue to stink until the nettle is firmly grasped

Actually I think the great majority of people find it hard to understand why disqualified drivers caught driving are not locked up. Even if it costs a bit more money to do it.

A local man was banned for a year for drink driving and I heard not one word of sympathy for him. If he had been seen driving during his ban he would have been shopped.

[thirdcrank]

... Actually I think the great majority of people find it hard to understand why disqualified drivers caught driving are not locked up. Even if it costs a bit more money to do it.

A lot of people want it both ways. Talk tough in general, soft in individual cases.

[reohn2]

I cannot understand why getting caught driving whilst banned does not incur an automatic custodial sentence which automatically increases in length for subsequent offences. That at least removes a danger for a while.

We the public have decided through the ballot box that we can't afford prisons or even an effective police force,and as Cunobelin points out the "there but for the grace of god" etc is prevelant in juries across the land.
The law and it's application stinks and will continue to stink until the nettle is firmly grasped

Actually I think the great majority of people find it hard to understand why disqualified drivers caught driving are not locked up. Even if it costs a bit more money to do it.

A local man was banned for a year for drink driving and I heard not one word of sympathy for him. If he had been seen driving during his ban he would have been shopped.

There was a case in Glasgow where a bin lorry driver passed out at the wheel and killed six people,he'd concealed his condition from his employer and his previous employer,he walked.
Sometime later whilst banned he was caught driving,he walked again
He's still walking and possible by now has his licence back and is driving......


There's dead people all over the land for want of decent policing and decent penalties,it continues to be the case,and I'm almost impotent to stop it.
If your banned driver was reported,unless there was very strong evidence to support the report ie; more than two witnesses,photo video evidence nothing would happen,I'm betting he wouldn't have even got a visit from the boys in blue,
Why?
Because there aren't enough off them to do the job they've been given,and even if he were brought to bookone simple clerical error by the police in the execution of their duty and a Mr slimey Loophole lawyer would get him off with it
Stuff's broken,no one's fixing it.

[pwa]

We the public have decided through the ballot box that we can't afford prisons or even an effective police force,and as Cunobelin points out the "there but for the grace of god" etc is prevelant in juries across the land.
The law and it's application stinks and will continue to stink until the nettle is firmly grasped

Actually I think the great majority of people find it hard to understand why disqualified drivers caught driving are not locked up. Even if it costs a bit more money to do it.

A local man was banned for a year for drink driving and I heard not one word of sympathy for him. If he had been seen driving during his ban he would have been shopped.

There was a case in Glasgow where a bin lorry driver passed out at the wheel and killed six people,he'd concealed his condition from his employer and his previous employer,he walked.
Sometime later whilst banned he was caught driving,he walked again
He's still walking and possible by now has his licence back and is driving......


There's dead people all over the land for want of decent policing and decent penalties,it continues to be the case,and I'm almost impotent to stop it.
If your banned driver was reported,unless there was very strong evidence to support the report ie; more than two witnesses,photo video evidence nothing would happen,I'm betting he wouldn't have even got a visit from the boys in blue,
Why?
Because there aren't enough off them to do the job they've been given,and even if he were brought to bookone simple clerical error by the police in the execution of their duty and a Mr slimey Loophole lawyer would get him off with it
Stuff's broken,no one's fixing it.

In this case, in my area, people tend to be "in the loop" with good connections and a bit of organisation, so a banned driver still at the wheel would probably have been dealt with. In my own village the (much respected) retired copper would have been on the blower to his mates. The offender would have been spoken to at the pub. The locals themselves would have applied pressure. But I'm talking about a couple of neighbouring villages where people know each other. In towns people can be more anonymous.

[reohn2]

In this case, in my area, people tend to be "in the loop" with good connections and a bit of organisation, so a banned driver still at the wheel would probably have been dealt with. In my own village the (much respected) retired copper would have been on the blower to his mates. The offender would have been spoken to at the pub. The locals themselves would have applied pressure. But I'm talking about a couple of neighbouring villages where people know each other. In towns people can be more anonymous.

Nail head on.
The bigger the community the easier it is to hide,many people who live in towns and cities don't know their neighbours.
Once in a while there's some poor elderly soul who's been found dead only because of the postman noticed flies in the windows and a strange smell through the letterplate

[Cugel]

Severely dangerous drivers are enabled by the technology. Would this person have done the damage he did if he'd not had access to that technology? It seems unlikely, even if he might have behaved in a similar way to cause lesser harms with less dangerous technologies, such as his bicycle. The nature of the technology (the car, road design and all the other contextual enablers for going about in a lethally dangerous fashion) is the fundamental problem.

Many will say (as in this thread) that the fundamental problems are the evil humans and how to deal more effectively with the creatures. Alas, all humans are potentially dangerous, stupid, inconsiderate and potentially lethal when their transitory bad mental states coincide with access to an inherently lethal technology, such as the car (or a gun). Some may be worse than others but even the most well-intentioned human can have "an accident" in a car when good judgement goes AWOL, including the lethal variety of "accident".

In short, the problem that can be solved is not human nature and it's behaviours but the technological amplifiers of bad human behaviour. As long as a society tolerates the madly lethal arrangements for personal public transport via an inherently dangerous machine on inherently dangerous roads (especially those closely shared with people walking, cycling, horse-riding et al) there will be incidents such as that referred to by the OP and many other incidents less egregious of cause but just as damaging to the victims. (Over a million killed and many times that number severely damaged worldwide each year, not to mention the effects on their nearest & dearest).

If it was trains or planes, bicycles or skateboards that were giving rise to these huge numbers of dead & maimed, along with the associated misery, there would be an uproar. But we have all been seduced by the stinking car. Even we cyclists, who are more aware than most of the danger the hurtling metal boxes pose, will probably still drive one ourselves. Some will do so dangerously, in the same fashion as they cycle, for all the same entirely human reasons.

***

This is not to say that, pragmatically, better efforts can't be made to limit the ability of the worst human offenders to get in a car. But that won't reduce the death & maiming rate by all that much .... even if it were practicable, which it seems it is not in a freedom-addicted society of "individuals" and their many duty-free rights.

As to revenge, reform or redemption via prison .... those seem to be dead-ends of no actual utility to the problem.

Cugel