Drug driver who killed two charity cyclists jailed for 70 years – despite insisting head-on crash was “a horrific accident”

Dicklexic wrote:

As a nation the USA has many many failings, but at least their justice system has the capacity to hand down significant and meaningful sentences to drivers that kill other road users. Whilst I don't wish to see the UK emulating the US on pretty much anything, I do wish our justice system was a lot tougher on dangerous drivers.

It varies a lot by state. Michigan, despite being the home of the US automotive industry, has been doing great recently in this respect. The Kalamazoo case also resulted in essentially lifetime imprisonment, and in the London Township case the 22 year old driver got 18-40 years.

Still, do the same thing without drugs or alcohol in your system, and don't flee the scene, and you'll get a much less severe sentence.

This is a another useful outcome of having a tame American (or expatriate?) on the site. Evidence from numerous recent UK cases suggests they would have received much lesser sentences here, along with the 'killer as victim' (he will have to live with this for the rest of his life etc. etc.)

wtjs wrote:

This is a another useful outcome of having a tame American (or expatriate?) on the site. Evidence from numerous recent UK cases suggests they would have received much lesser sentences here, along with the 'killer as victim' (he will have to live with this for the rest of his life etc. etc.)

Thanks. Born in the UK but we emigrated to the US when I was 8 and I've lived here since. I've visited the UK many times as my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins) are all there. I may move back some day, and I hold dual citizenship.

The US is able to imprison more than the UK as we have way more prisons. Ours are fairly full, too, but we have four times as many prisoners per capita than the UK. The US prison population is over 2 million, about 2/3 of the population of Wales!

I also value your reports of cycling in a continental climate- we very rarely have the conditions here (parts of Scotland excepted) for your gritty winter cycling. The snow doesn't last and black ice is the problem for most- most of us just wouldn't get the use out of those studded tyres!

andystow wrote:

The US is able to imprison more than the UK as we have way more prisons. Ours are fairly full, too, but we have four times as many prisoners per capita than the UK. The US prison population is over 2 million, about 2/3 of the population of Wales!

I would guess that the surprising size of the U.S. prison population is something to do with the privatised nature of them (more prisoners = more profit) and the fact that prisoners can be made to work for barely any wages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States

That may sustain it, but looks like the inception of having the world's biggest prison system is on the Nixon and Reagan administrations:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_prison_systems

Like many things in the US it's surprisingly recent - America does build things fast.

chrisonabike wrote:

That may sustain it, but looks like the inception of having the world's biggest prison system is on the Nixon and Reagan administrations: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_prison_systems Like many things in the US it's surprisingly recent - America does build things fast.

We're going to need a graph for this

The numbers have actually been reducing since around 2010 or so. Strangely, almost any graph you make of things in the U.S. show a sudden growth starting with Reagan's era, but unfortunately those graphs are usually for bad things (e.g. wage inequality).

Yes. Mostly the from the War on (some) Drugs.

andystow wrote:

Yes. Mostly the from the War on (some) Drugs.

Looks to me like drugs won that war. But yes, clamping down hard on the users of drugs is a good way to increase the prison population.

Amen - this is precisely the realisation that people need to make.

Yes, I don't deny that there will be instances where things happen that are not squarely the drivers fault - things fail, punctures happen, with all the care in the world, sometimes you'll catch some ice at an awful moment and in a way you can't reasonably predict - whilst some of these can be mitigated, they may not outright be the fault of bad driving - but people who speed, people who drink drive, people who close pass, when they cause collisions, these are a result of poor decision make that creates risk - they aren't accidents and society needs to recognise that.

I find myself always coming back to the point that we fail to acknowledge that driving is effectively the single most dangerous thing most of us encounter on a daily basis and no matter the number of KSIs - society still doesn't treat it that way.

As noted in the comments on Ashley Neal's "the motorist innocently killed..." - yes, but in that case perhaps we should have a health warning on the vehicle's binnacle: "using this vehicle to make a journey increases your risk of killing or seriously injuring others - which may have serious implications for your own life.  Do you need to drive this trip?"

Yes - I did think that whilst this woman's actions and lack of remorse are a problem - this is clearly someone who has deep problems that aren't going to be addressed in prison.

The sad thing is that nobody involved wins out of this and I suspect, people with that level of dependency are, realistically not going to be deterred by this.

Carior wrote:

Yes - I did think that whilst this woman's actions and lack of remorse are a problem - this is clearly someone who has deep problems that aren't going to be addressed in prison.

The sad thing is that nobody involved wins out of this and I suspect, people with that level of dependency are, realistically not going to be deterred by this.

Nobody wins, but lots of people are safer

HollisJ wrote:

Meanwhile in the UK...

Indeed. Momentary lapse of concentration. First offence. Didn't mean to. Remorseful once caught and presented with damning evidence etc etc. 6 years perhaps. 

Or two years suspended sentence with the inconvenience of an ankle tag because there's no room in the prison...