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The reforms will also create a new offence of causing serious injury by careless driving. This is so drivers who inflict long-term or permanent injuries will face tougher sentences. Careless drivers who kill while under the influence of drink or drugs will also face life sentences. Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said: “Too many lives have been lost to reckless behaviour behind the wheel, devastating families. We have changed the law, so that those responsible will now face the possibility of life behind bars.”
Support for heavier sentences has also come from a leading motorists’ group.
Steve Gooding, director of the RAC Foundation, said: “Drivers exhibiting the worst behaviour on the roads are a danger to us all – those who behave with disregard to the risk they pose deserve the stiffest penalties when their actions rob others of their lives. Hopefully the threat of a life sentence will be enough to cause those who drive recklessly to change their ways.
“Involuntary manslaughter already carries a maximum penalty of up to life imprisonment so it is hard to argue that killing someone with a car doesn’t warrant a possible sanction of similar severity.”
The Government says it wants to ensure “punishments reflect the severity of crimes and the misery killer drivers leave in their wake”.
It insists the Crown Prosecution Service will still charge people with murder or manslaughter where there is evidence that a vehicle was used as a weapon to kill or commit grievous bodily harm.
Former Prime Minister Theresa May campaigned for a increase in the maximum sentence for causing death from 14 years to life, going so far as to introduce her own legislation.
However, the change in the law has also stirred controversy.
Birmingham-based solicitor Regan Peggs argued on his website that the introduction of life sentences for causing death by dangerous driving “would simply mean that we would see a corresponding reduction in prosecutions for manslaughter, but with absolutely no effect on the overall number or length of sentences imposed”.
The Government claimed that it was necessary to increase sentences because “too many of these incidents involve criminal behaviour”.
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