Legislation to bring harsher sentences for killer drivers

It will signal the end of a four year wait following a 2017 pledge from the Ministry of Justice – and is set to signal the culmination of a long-standing campaign by road safety champions which has been highlighted and backed by the Gazette and its sister publications.

The move forms part of major sentencing reforms to be unveiled by the Lord Chancellor in a White Paper this week.

Specifically, the measures around driving include plans to: Increase the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving from 14 years to life; increase the maximum penalty for causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs from 14 years to life and create a new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving.

Road safety campaign organisation Brake has long advocated for an overhaul of UK road law to deliver justice for victims and to help keep roads free from dangerous drivers.

Joshua Harris, Brake’s director of campaigns, said: “Crash victims have waited three long years for this announcement.

“Road crime is real crime and it is high-time that the Government, and the law, recognised this.

“Years of Government inaction have added to the suffering of road victims who have not been delivered the justice they, and their loved ones, deserve.

“The Government must now implement these tougher sentences as first priority, delivering on their overdue promise to road crash victims, and then urgently initiate a review of the flawed legal framework for road justice.

“Driving is a privilege not a right and yet our flawed legal system continues to allow convicted dangerous drivers on the roads where they can endanger others.

“We all want safer roads but we will only achieve this if the law treats road crime with the seriousness it deserves.”

Our Drive For Justice campaign in 2016 revealed the scandal of lenient sentences.

As well as giving families a voice, a Drive For Justice petition was launched and we submitted our coverage as part of a Government consultation.

Among the grieving family members highlighted was Catherine Smith of Wrea Green, whose husband Peter and daughter Janet were killed in separate road accidents 14 years apart.

She said: “You never get over it – we suffer the life sentence, not the culprits. I feel those responsible for causing deaths on the road should get a sentence that fits the crime.

“It will never bring back your loved one, but at least you’d feel you had some sort of justice.”