I have no desire to be a Law and Order zealot. Garth McVicar I am not. However, the number of constituents who have contacted me recently about our approach to those that cause injury or death on the road has got me thinking.
There is a good reason I’ve been seeing a lot of these cases – there has been a number of totally avoidable deaths on Manawatu roads recently, several involving cyclists.
The thrust of the complaints I’ve received is that we are too lenient on those who cause lethal accidents on the road. It’s an understandable response from people who have lost loved ones.
The gut reaction is, of course, to lock people away longer and to punish them harder. I’m not sure that achieves much but I do wonder if we need to look at how long drivers might lose their license if found guilty of careless, reckless or dangerous driving causing death and what might be demanded of them before that license is returned. Same goes for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
So I have some questions:
- Is the current system too lenient?
- If it is, what is the appropriate method of punishment and rehabilitation?
- Should a driver’s license be automatically suspended when they are involved in an accident causing death pending the outcome of their trial?
There are other ways to prevent road accidents besides tougher penalties and while that is not the focus of this post, feel free to share your thoughts on those too.
Your post seems to infer that its normally the one who dosnt die who is the cause of the accident.
But we all need to remember that often that the person killed is a victim of their own actions.
Sure someone can be killed on a bike by a speeding car – but if that person wasn’t riding 3 abreast on on the open road then they would not have been hit. Who’s to blame?
Whilst I’m all for harsher punishments for drunk / drugged drivers and the like (although there are many on this blog who have already said jails etc dont work) – I worry that the person left standing will end up getting all the blame – regardless of the contributory actions of the person killed.
But even with a loss of license some just carry on. Maybe its another issue for the weight of public opinion. Like drink-drive projects, or anti smoking, or Its Not Alright. But for specific people with particular problems ummmm….
My answer to your third question is a resounding ‘No!’
I consider myself a safe, courteous driver. From time to time I share the road with other users who appear to have a death wish.
These may be other motorists who (whether under the influence of something or not) don’t seem to have a clue about our road code, or motorcyclists who think that screaming down the middle of two way traffic at 140km/h is sensible, or cyclists who believe that it’s safe to cycle dressed in black jeans and black hoodie without lights in rural areas at night.
If one of these people choose to use my car as the instrument of their suicide the effects on me would be pretty traumatic.
Compounding this by taking my licence away for months until their own guilt was established would be against all notions of justice.
It’s almost as bad as the radical cycling lobby’s suggestion that whenever a car hits a cyclist the driver of the car should automatically be considered the guilty party.
I want ‘serious injury’ to be included in this debate – injury that results in lifelong impairment, enormous rehabilitive cost, misery for both the injured and their families. We talk about deaths but death is not the only awful outcome of these road crashes and, arguably, not be the worst. I don’t support longer prison sentences. I support longer licence cancellation and reparations; financial and in whatever other ways are possible – for the length of time it takes to rehabilitate the victim/s.
Driver education and driving culture are very important elements.
Punishing someone after they have caused a death – sure – but the victim is already dead so of limited use.
Also, PN roads are a real mixed bag for cyclists, some busy spots have dedicated cycle lanes and other spots have nothing with very little consideration for how a cyclist is even meant to get through.
Someone needs to do a statistical analysis on the circumstances of every cycle death in the last 12 months as well to better understand what is actually happening physically at these accidents.
Prevention is better than cure.
Legislation might work, provided it is the right kind. Think outside the box. Boy racing has nose-dived since the car crushing threat was brought in. Of course, you can’t crush people in car compactors for their dangerous driving.
I’ve never had a driving incident as such so I can’t speak from experience, but knowing the NZ justice system it probably is too lenient.
However, things like this and our binge drinking culture are really just political footballs MPs toss around to make themselves feel better. Nothing apart from a long term cultural shift will solve our binge drinking problem, and I suspect it’s the same with our driving.
I think enforcement is key to altering behavior on our roads. In spite of what the Police say, you’d be extremely unlucky to get caught doing just about anything on the roads. We get endless excuses like we are a long country, with a small population and few officers, which in this day and age are a bit pathetic. We all know that the cops will be out in force over Xmas, Easter and Labour Weekend and consequently absent at other times of the year. Surely there are technological solutions to some of the driving habits that cause accidents. In addition, I think the cops need to get off their arses and do some proper enforcement and deal with things that hardly ever get attention such as folloiwng distance and dangerous overtaking. It seems like they focus on speed and alcohol because they are simple to measure and ignore other dangerous practices because they are too difficult.
Having lived in Palmy most my life I would say the issue there which is probably bringing you so many constituents is the poor driving habits of the city in general. At the time my parents got their licenses done there the AA had a bit of a bad reputation for giving out licenses quite leniently which could have started the issue but they are much more strict now.
From personal experience I found a tendency of the police there to let go a huge number of the people they pull over driving illegally with warnings rather than charging them and then fine people for not indicating properly on roundabouts for half the day. During high school I had one of my friends there pulled over 4 times on their restricted license with passengers without penalty yet others were fined for not stopping long enough at a stop sign despite coming to a complete stop. The police also stay usually only to the central roads at night and as a result a great number of drink drivers know “cop free” routes which they can drive home on.
There is also a much less cyclist friendly culture there than in other parts of New Zealand. I used to cycle to school there and was rarely given enough room by cars who seemed to find it quite amusing to cut me off and saw two other cyclists killed along Main Street while on the way back from school on separate occasions.
For at least the situation in Palmy I would not consider increasing penalties or rules while the current ones are not being enforced correctly. I also seriously doubt increasing the penalties for driving dangerously would make any difference to people’s behaviour. Suspending licenses (and perhaps confiscating cars for those poor at obeying license restrictions) should be more common place where a driver appears to be in the wrong and should include a retraining element. Suspending automatically for all serious accidents doesn’t really sound sensible but if there is suspicion of the driving having been dangerous then yes it should be suspended until the trial as a precaution.
Rubbish. Boy racers are just as much a problem issue now as they were in 2008.
What helps are police on the street, doing what they are paid to do – prevent crime.
Crusher collins has crushed how many cars?
That’s how the nats do all their policy work – By making up populist slogans as they go along.
Crusher collins has crushed how many cars?
You don’t need to crush for the policy to be effective. Just having it there is a sufficient deterrant.
Back in the day we had the cane in schools. In my school not that many got it, and not that often. But it sure as hell had an effect on our behaviour…
We have a problem in NZ and that is driver attitude. As a driver and cyclist I am stunned at the aggression shown by drivers to law abiding cycling.My wife and son and I all cycle together we never cycle two abreast and yet we constantly get cut off, have cars turn in front of us, speed past us etc.
The number of people dying while cycling is totally unacceptable. Further to that I am not aware of any death of a cyclist in the last year that has occurred due to riding three abreast as Chris seems to be suggesting. NZers need to slow down and just be more reasonable towards other road users. The fact is if you hit something from behind while driving its your fault period!Sadly we do need more enforcement and we need safer roads that are designed to cycle on.Cycling should be a fun family activity sadly in NZ its like playing Russian Roulette.
I think the issues surrounding drink driving needs to be looked at.
Sure, once this government has been booted out the legal breath alcohal limit should be reduced as soon as practicable, perhaps as a step to moving to 0%.
What I’d like to see is an increase in the seriousness and consequences of causing death under the influence or through dangerous driving.
Everyone knows that driving standards are exponentially reduced according to levels of consumption. If someone drives when over the limit, knowing this fact, then I think pre meditation should come into the equasion and increases in penalties should reflect this.
No-one is the victim of a drink driving accident.
People are victims of pre meditated criminal activity.
George’s argument is like the guy throwing rocks out of the window to keep the elephants away! If the cane was so effective, why was it ever used? And society may have changed a bit in the last thirty years…
And boy racers still trundle along as usual, racking up fines like they did before the slogan politics took over.
These kids know nothing will happen to them or their cars because the car crush threat is zero and the policy an unsuprising total sham.
I’ve often wondered why prominently advertised permanent speed cameras aren’t mounted in known ‘black spots’ where speed is determined to be the main factor for causing accidents.
Even if two or three cameras had to be mounted in the black spot area to be effective, and even if the revenue collected from those cameras was negligible, I would have thought it a straightforward way to cause a reduction in speed through the area, leading to a reduction in accidents.
In addition to that, I think that many of the riskier young drivers who rack up multiple fines simply ignore them knowing that eventually they’ll either be written off or traded for community service at some stage. The fines themselves are no real deterrent to them. But if we enabled the fines to be passed on to private debt collectors then it has the potential to affect their credit rating, making it harder for them to buy another car in the future, which would be a much stronger deterrent.
And society may have changed a bit in the last thirty years…
I think we both agree on that one, Dot…
Well on this you’d be wrong, Prison and Police are very effective at reducing crime…
The full referenced text is in the original book…
Typical, the type of irresponsible individual who would cause the death of an innocent victim is exactly the type of person who do it twice… To mention nothing of the principles of Justice, Punishment and Deterence…