2 yrs 4 a txt

The CPS is now considering a sentence of 2 years in prison if you use your mobile phone whilst you are driving. The immediate response is to note that the laws are more than a little draconian in this area, and those who are proposing them are a bunch of totalitarian fucks. And that one of their number would now be facing two years in the slammer.

It is also worth noting that the "research" that compares mobile phone use whilst driving to drink driving is not that meaningful. As the BBC states:

"According to the research, a driver on the phone is more distracted than one who has drunk as much as the legal alcohol limit."

So driving whilst on a mobile is more distracting than driving having consumed a legal amount of alcohol. That is a meaningless stat: driving whilst on a mobile (illegal) is more distracting than driving having consuming a little alcohol (legal). Whatever next? The revelation that driving whilst on your mobile is less distracting than having consumed 10 pints of beer and seven shots of sambuca?

But when I think about it there is some merit in the laws. Large numbers of people still drive whilst using their mobiles/sat navs* which would indicate that the existing penalties are not working. And I favour treating causing death by dangerous driving as manslaughter, at least from the perspective of the victim’s family and friends. After all, it doesn’t really matter if the perpetrator killed someone accidentally in a fight or accidentally in a car. You’re still lost a loved one through the idiocy of someone else.

The reason why many people will probably get irate about this is because of the discrepancy in sentencing. You can get two years for sending a text whilst you are driving. You could also get two years** for possessing a large amount of child pornography showing penetrative abuse by an adult and/or child pornography showing bestial or sadistic acts. On the one hand, you have the offence of driving like a tit. On the other hand, you have the offence of possessing large amounts of material that were created through the extreme abuse of children. The two offences are not really comparable in their relative seriousness.

Which shows the problem with the UK justice system. The sentencing laws have evolved over time, meaning there are some mad discrepancies. And it is ultimately not fair for someone to serve the same amount of time inside for being a bit stupid and possessing extreme child porn. The UK needs a radical overhaul of the sentencing criteria. Instead we get random, ill thought out proposals.

But then we really shouldn’t be surprised. This government isn’t capable of running the Home Office. There is no way that they would be capable of carrying out a radical overhaul of anything, let alone the justice system.

*I was nearly hit by a lorry recently whose driver looked down to fiddle with his sat nav and missed the fact that he was coming up to a pedestrian crossing. What a shit head.
**Between 12 months and 3 years, technically speaking.