He is well known to Police (what a surprise!!) and a disqualified driver (what a surprise!!). Obviously they only have to stop but the problem is we are dealing with nutters who don't give a stuff.
Last night on TV 3 John Campbell interviewed a girl who drove off drunk from a Police stop and killed a woman. She got 8 months home detention and banned from driving for 3 1/2 years. Should have been 3 years jail (although I would accept home detention as it saves us money) and banned from driving for 20 years.
Police recorded 1280 pursuits between January and July, with 199 ending in crashes and 10 people have been killed this year alone - although some of these are the the criminals, which is the good news. The do-gooders who moan and complain when the idiot drivers die, are pathetic.
A police report released in July recommended abandoning pursuits once an offender's identity was known so an arrest could be made later. A problem is that even if we do know who the car belongs to, the lawyers will get them off as we can't really prove it was them in the car and they will say it was stolen, as happened recently.
So what do we do.
I have supported chasing them as the message will be that if they are asked to stop they will just speed away and if the car is stolen we won't catch them.
But maybe it is time for a change.
Some thoughts are -
- compulsory insurance
- all recidivist disqualified drivers names are held on a database and they are not allowed to own a vehicle,
- people must identify themselves to buy a car,
- banning from driving for much longer (15 - 20 years and as I said before cannot own a car for that time),
- if people lend them their car they face prison,
- driver licenses have to be displayed as you drive (put a plastic cover in the right hand side of the windscreen),
- no license until 18 and only then if attended a driver training school otherwise 21,
- limited driving rules until 25,
- zero breath limit,
- name and shame them,
- when the get out of jail they must keep the Police advised of their address for as long as they can't drive and we advertise that they are in the area so people can watch them,
- put a curfew on them, etc.
And charge them with murder and let the jury decide. I know the nanny/police state arguement but these restrictions are only being put upon criminals.
But we all know nothing will happen.
The lunatic decision of our politicians is that if I walk down the road and stab somebody, I get charged with murder. If I get drunk and kill them with a car it is ' causing death by use of a motor vehicle' - a lesser charge than manslaughter. Madness!!
In my blog post of 25 May 2007 I wrote about an US idea where convicted drunks have to have special number plates for xx number of years after they have served their conviction.
Back ups: Our Maxtor Exterrnal Hard Drive has gone on the blink. It looks as if it has gone. My last back up of of the drive was last March and my own stuff I back up every 2/3 weeks to a Flashdrive and the Laptop. However, Christine had just downloaded 300 photos to it but didn't back them up. We all learn something every day!!
