According to police figures, there were 394 offences committed in England and Wales for causing death by dangerous driving in 2014/15, which equates to over one offence every single day. It is hard to imagine how it must be for anyone having a loved-one cruelly and suddenly taken from them by an act that is entirely preventable and inexcusable. There are also many more lives dramatically changed forever because of horrific injuries caused by dangerous driving.
Very sadly, in Crawley and the surrounding areas, we have seen several cases of deaths caused by dangerous driving on our roads over the last decade and it is awful to think that we are likely to have more over the next decade. No one ever sets out to cause such tragedies but there is often a disconnect between idiotic driving and those doing it realising what the potential terrible consequences could be.
I’m sure we’ve all seen examples of dangerous driving that puts people at risk (including the driver) and if I can capture the registration and car description, I always file a report on Sussex Police’s Operation Crackdown website at http://www.operationcrackdown.org/. It also comes up first if you search “Operation Crackdown” on internet search engines. I view it as important to challenge dangerous driving and for it to be widely regarded as totally unacceptable. Peer pressure is helpful but I have long thought that sentences for causing death by dangerous driving have not been a strong enough deterrent to make ‘boy racers’ and others who drive dangerously to engage their brains and change their behaviour.
For example, the average custodial sentence last year for causing death by dangerous driving was just under four years. When you think that usually only 50% of sentences are served, two years does not feel a strong enough deterrent. Therefore, I was pleased to see last weekend Justice Minister and MP for Surrey East, Sam Gyimah, say that the government are proposing to strongly toughen up sentencing for dangerous driving, including life sentences. This will help get the message through to change behaviours and ultimately save lives.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
7th December 2016