Dangerous Driving

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you presiding, Mrs Moon. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I pay tribute to the petitioners. I thank Brake and the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety for their briefings, and I thank the Petitions Committee for facilitating the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for her excellent introductory speech, and I am pleased to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher).

Apart from the specifics in the briefings, which I will come to, my concern is that government generally, this Government in particular and society do not attach enough seriousness to road deaths—let alone those caused by dangerous driving, which cause even more pain. If there were 1,500 deaths a year in aviation or on trains, there would be a demand for a public inquiry, and with the number of road deaths stagnating in recent years, we need to address this issue much more seriously. The Government’s refusal in 2010 to set a target for casualty reductions, abandoning a 30-year consensus of all Governments since the Thatcher Administration, is indicative of the coalition and now this Conservative Government’s relaxed approach. We had seen a gradual reduction in road deaths over the decades, but since 2010 that has stalled.

Our general attitude to road deaths is far too complacent, and it sends all the wrong signals. It creates a climate of “roads deaths happen”. When they are committed as part of another crime, they are not condemned as heavily as they ought to be. It is almost as if these deaths—murders—are obscured by all the deaths happening on our roads. Road crashes are the cause of more deaths among young people than anything else. The Government proposed a Green Paper for graduated licences for new—mostly young—drivers to impress upon them how serious a step it is to get behind the wheel of a vehicle. The Green Paper disappeared.

We do not create the appropriate attitude in our new drivers: that, as many colleagues have said, they are in charge of a lethal weapon and, if they use it to cause harm or death to others, there are serious consequences. Just as we do not approach this issue appropriately from an educational or training point of view, nor do we do so from a legal one. We need to approach driving much more seriously.

I am not generally in favour of mandatory sentences because the bench and judges should have discretion, but if my family—my child or my grandchild—were the victim of one of the atrocious crimes we have heard about, I would want the full extent of the law used against the criminals who perpetrated that crime. I would want the penalty under the law to be appropriate, as so many colleagues have said. The law is lacking, to say the least, and the Government know that. They have promised change for years. The question to the Minister, who is held in high regard across the House as a man of integrity, is: when will it happen?

I turn to the briefings, and the one by Brake in particular. Brake says:

“Deaths and serious injuries on our roads cause terrible suffering every day. This suffering is often compounded by a flawed legal framework which lets serious offenders get away with pitiful penalties and allows dangerous drivers back on our roads. We are calling on the Government to finally implement the tougher sentences for killer drivers it announced in…2017”.

Two of its demands are: to bring forward legislation that implements maximum sentences; and to simplify and improve legal definitions of unsafe driving behaviour, and specifically the use of “dangerous” and “careless”. Brake continues:

“It cannot be right that the average prison sentence for a driver who has killed someone through dangerous or illegal driving is four years. When we consider that the minimum sentence for domestic burglary with no additional charges of bodily harm is three years.”

It is a very powerful point. Brake also echoes a point made by my hon. Friends:

“In 2014, the then Secretary of State for Justice…promised a full review of all road traffic offences, yet this promise remains unfulfilled.”

Why is that?

Brake also mentions the 2016 consultation:

“Brake does not, however, agree with the Government’s contentions in their response that ‘There is a risk that juries may be less willing to convict…Juries would be able to receive clear direction that a range of penalties would be available in sentencing, with precedent shown, negating this as an issue.”

Brake discussed the important issue of careless and dangerous driving, and called for the legal definition of unsafe driving to be simplified and improved. It wrote:

“The maximum sentence for causing death by careless driving is only five years, compared to 14 for causing death by dangerous driving.”

Brake discussed the contrast between the two sentences and found that

“since it was introduced in 2008…in the first few years after the new charge was introduced, the number of ‘death by dangerous driving’ convictions dropped off as the number of deaths by careless driving convictions increased. In 2007…there were 233 death by dangerous driving convictions, this then fell to 114 in 2011, when there were 235 death by careless driving convictions.”

The question is whether one rate of conviction is coming down while the other is going up, resulting in lower penalties for people found guilty of a less serious offence. Brake thinks there is a relationship between the two rates of conviction, so perhaps the Minister could comment on that.

Brake has also stated:

“Additionally, the use of the term ‘careless’ in cases where driving has resulted in death and serious injury undermines and trivialises the gravitas of the offence and its impact on victims and their families.”

The Minister knows that language is critical, and that “careless” just does not convey the seriousness of the crime. I agree.

The issue of dangerous driving is hugely important to the safety and wellbeing of all our constituents. The Government have been making the right noises and the right promises. So many deaths are caused by human actions: speeding, not wearing a seatbelt, the use of drink and drugs, or using a mobile phone—all deliberate human actions. Such actions are perhaps not criminal or serious enough for people to be charged with the most serious offence, but road deaths are caused by human beings who make decisions and do not care about the rest of us. Those people need to be brought to book.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Not for the first time in Westminster Hall, I agree with everything the hon. Gentleman has said. Clearly, we must bring forward changes to the sentencing guidelines. I have listened to some incredible contributions. I wonder whether he is aware of the Don’t Motor On Meds campaign, which has not been mentioned during the debate. It focuses on the role that prescription medication can have in dangerous driving—it can often create unwittingly lethal drivers. Yes, the Government could change the sentencing guidelines, but the pharmaceutical industry could act quickly—now—to label medication much more clearly as “not safe to drive with”. Many of the charities are very good at doing that, but many of the pharmaceutical companies bury it in the small print. We are all about prevention, as well as the right punishment when tragic events happen.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

The hon. Gentleman makes an appropriate point. Individual drivers have personal responsibility: when they get medication, they need to ensure that it does not impair their judgment and that they are not a risk to others on the road. Pharmaceutical companies have a role in that, because they should be printing large warning labels on medication to say: “Do you know this means you are not fit to drive?” GPs have a responsibility to report to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency drivers who are not fit to drive—be it for eyesight, mental health issues or other problems that individuals have—and individuals also have responsibility. Right across the piece, we all need to recognise that there are problems.

I have recently been looking at the issue of more frequent testing for the over-70s, because there have been some publicised cases of older drivers driving up motorways the wrong way and causing death. The evidence from other countries suggests that if mandatory testing is introduced for all over-70s or over-75s and they pass, they think they can go back to driving like they did when they were 45 or 50. It actually has a counter-effect, and it is therefore not always easy to identify simple solutions. There are no simple solutions to this.

We are driving vehicles that can kill people and the responsibility lies with us, as well as with other people and other family members to ensure that we are safe when we get behind the wheel. That is not what we are talking about today; we are talking about criminals who deliberately do things that they ought not to be doing and who cause death and destruction, and grief and bereavement, to decent families across the country. I do not point the finger at the Conservative Government, because dangerous driving has affected all parties and Governments. As a Parliament, we need to ensure that we have the right penalty to fit the crime. If we do not, people outside will feel that they are not being well represented and will be forced to take action themselves.

I believe that we need to approach driving differently—educationally and culturally. Great progress has been made on improving the practical and theoretical driving tests in recent years, but there is more to be done. We must remember that we have among the safest roads in the world—we are usually in the top three countries for safe roads, but we are still killing 1,500 people a year. Dangerous, criminal drivers are hidden among all that, and they should be taken out and identified so that they act as a deterrent to other people who commit the same crimes.

As hon. Members have said, the punishment does not always match the crime at the moment. The petitioners are waiting to hear what the Government intend to do. Like other hon. Members, I have high regard for the Minister; I look forward to his response, which I hope will give us all some reassurance.