22BUK

Speeding - four people dead - seven years in jail.

From the Judge: "It is clear to me, from the evidence, that in your thirst for speed you treated a public road as if it was some kind of private race track, in which to give free rein to the performance of your sports car.


Full story here

midget1500

that's scary. yes, it's awful that people were killed but for 82 in a 60 it's worrying (i mean, on a bend in a 60 zone you could lose it at 40). more like dangerous driving than speeding, but then again you could come round an unknown bend too quickly (but within the speed limit) and find yourself in trouble.

from just reading what happened it seems he got 7 years jail for the deaths, rather than out and out speeding/dangerous driving.

Freak

just another sign of how f*cked up this country is getting.....

Not condoning the deaths, but ffs....get real.....

it IS scary.

midget1500

i didn't want to be insensitive, if i killed 4 people i'd be gutted and living with that wouldn't be easy, but throwing me in jail for 7 years is insult to injury and you'd probably go nuts and kill yourself. the judge obviously doesn't own a car, 80 in a 60 is hardly racetrack territory, there are NSL roads i know and love and would frequently go faster than that on. recently on a bend with me pushing it came a motorbike in my lane, i just steered left as much as i could, braked and waited for the hit, but never came thankfully. i thought, imagine if i had of hit him, even being his fault, just how awful that would be.

i think it's hard to accept considering what other people get away with these days, like hijacking aircraft and walking away free. 7 years, his life has now also been ruined by the courts!

carl

Hmm, so if he'd been going 60 then he wouldn't have been prosecuted?

I wouldn't call an MGF a 'sports car' either (though from the pictures at first I thought it was an MX-5, but the linked articles say an MG).

LG John

Massively harsh IMHO I feel very sorry for the family of those injured and killed but I think having that with him for the rest of his life will do far more than 7 years. I know that if I went to jail for 7 years for such a thing I'd come out a far far worse person than I went in. I'd be bitter, twistied, hateful of authority and certainly not reformed!

ProperCharlie

it's not very clear how the crash happened - it seems like he was on the wrong side of the road for some reason, but AFAICR doing 82 mph doesn't necessitate driving on the wrong side. He can't remember what happened; I would say it's more likely that he was distracted for a second, trying to change cd or something and wandered into the middle of the road. happens all the time, 99.9% of the time the driver looks up - oh **** - , and steers himself to safety. this time - bang.

ProperCharlie

also, you could cause death dy drink driving and only get half that sentence. Would the judge come out with a load of tosh about someone's thirst for beer?

yoza

OK hands up whos done 83 or more in a 60 zone?

Then again dont reply and incriminate yourself,but you get my drift!

what would scooby do

93 in a 70 - IDGAS

Leslie

I feel sorry for the people who were killed myself. They lost so much of the lives that they were entitled to expect to live due to the sheer bad driving of a selfish man and his incompetence. It's not just the family left behind who have lost out even though it is modern fashion just to express sorrow on their behalf.

Les

LG John

Quite often I try to drive within the conditions but I'll happily admit I can't account for all eventualities and I doubt that more than a handful of us could.