Drivers who kill while on phone face life in jail
Victory for Mail campaign as penalties to match manslaughter
MOTORISTS who kill while using their phone at the wheel will face life in jail, in a victory for the Daily Mail’s End The Mobile Madness campaign.
Under a tough Government crackdown announced yesterday, the penalty for drivers who cause death while making calls, texting or checking social media will be brought into line with manslaughter.
Ministers have acted after the Mail campaigned alongside bereaved families and road safety groups for tougher penalties against drivers who flout the law on mobile phones.
In a major hardening of sentencing guidelines, the maximum term for causing death by dangerous or careless driving will rise from 14 years to life imprisonment. Justice Minister Dominic Raab said the move was part of a wider Government drive to tackle criminal behaviour on Britain’s roads.
He added: ‘Based on the seriousness of the worst cases and the anguish of the victims’ families, we intend to introduce life sentences of imprisonment for those who wreck lives.’
Of 9,000 people who took part in a Ministry of Justice consultation, 70 per cent backed life sentences for dangerous driving.
Last October, a Polish lorry driver who killed a mother and three children while looking down at his phone was jailed for ten years. Tracy Houghton, 45, from Dunstable Bedfordshire, died alongside her sons Josh, 11, and Ethan, 13, and stepdaughter Aimee Goldsmith, 11, when Tomasz Kroker ploughed into her car in stationary traffic while looking for music on his phone. The judge told him that ‘he might as well have had his eyes closed’.
Speaking after the sentencing Aimee’s mother, Kate Goldsmith, appealed for motorists to ‘make a personal commitment to stop using mobile phones while driving and make roads safer for everyone’.
She said: ‘The ten-year sentence will not ease our pain and suffering, nor do we believe it will send a strong enough message to those who lack the self-restraint to not use a mobile phone when driving.’
In 2016 some 35 deaths were recorded where a driver being distracted or impaired by their phone was a contributory factor, up from 22 the previous year.
Jason Wakeford, director of campaigns for road safety charity Brake, said that tougher penalties marked a ‘major victory for the families of victims’. He added: ‘We applaud the Government for at last recognising that the statute books have been weighed against thousands of families who have had their lives torn apart through the actions of drivers who have flagrantly broken the law.’
Ministers will also create an offence of ‘causing serious injury by careless driving’, such as failing to check a wing mirror or becoming distracted by the radio, which will carry a jail sentence.
The Mail launched its End The Mobile Madness campaign last year after the RAC warned that phone use at the wheel had reached ‘epidemic’ proportions. Damning statistics released last month showed that more than nine million motorists are still flouting the law by using their mobiles at the wheel.
Ministers insisted they were determined to make ‘text-driving’ as socially unacceptable as drinkdriving. Since March 1, the punishment for using a phone in the driving seat has doubled from three points to six. It meant drivers hit the 12-point threshold for an automatic ban after two offences instead of four.
Fines for using a device while driving also rose from £100 to £200 under the shake-up unveiled by the Department for Transport.