Dangerous driving: often the driver is also the victim of circumstance

by JOHN McGLINCHEY of Forensic Engineering Solutions

GET CONVICTED of Dangerous Driving Causing Death, and you’re off to jail.

When you get there, roadsafety pressure-groups will lament the apparent leniency of your sentence and quote statistics about the death toll on the roads and the effect of the bereavement on the immediate families.

What the pressuregroups will not tell you is that the UK enjoys one of the best records in Europe for safety on the roads.

Such organisations cry for zero-tolerance, but are either blissfully or willingly ignorant to the harsh realities of what this charge and related charges actually consider.

Road-safety pressure groups will not tell you that: “...reports written on behalf of the prosecution could be highly selective documents in which the uncertainties and limitations of forensic science evidence are not always revealed...[on the basis that] it is for the defence to draw out the limitations of prosecution evidence...” (Townley L and Ede R: Forensic Practice in Criminal Cases, The Law Society).

In fact, even when the PPS has been put on notice by way of service of a defence expert report that the original PPS opinion is not sustainable, that information is not acted upon.

It is a truism that, while rapists, murderers or robbers set out intentionally to inflict harm upon another, most drivers do not. In fact the vast majority of drivers who find themselves charged with Dangerous Driving Causing Death can be viewed as much avictim of the circumstances as the deceased and the bereaved.

At Forensic Engineering Solutions our emphasis is upon applying a strict scientific test to all evidence. We rigorously apply scientific reasoning to all prosecution reports, and it frequently becomes apparent that most reports provided on behalf of the prosecution are riddled with holes, inconsistencies, inaccuracies and overstatements.

We take a report apart: paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word. We dissect the report such that each individual comment is scrutinised on its own, with its failings exposed.

Only by taking that approach can we assure any defendant be that he (or, less frequently, she) has been adequately and competently represented at an engineering level.

In a recent case, the defendant was driving an articulated lorry at 52mph where the legal limit was 40mph, was caused to brake excessively and jackknifed.

One person was killed, two were seriously injured and three more received relatively minor injuries.

The prosecution case was seductively simple: had the lorry been travelling at 40mph there was sufficient room for the driver to bring it to a halt. We were able to show, thorough mathematical analysis, that even at 40mph in the same circumstances the lorry would still have jack-knifed.

The point was conceded by the Crown witness under cross-examination.

The driver was acquitted of Dangerous Driving and the defendant walked away without any blemish on his licence.

In addition to death, we have the charge of Causing Grievous Bodily Injury by Careless Driving.

That charge brings with it two elements: that of the driving and of the injury.

At Forensic Engineering Solutions we compare the sustained injury to the Abbreviated Injury Scale, wherein individual injuries are accorded a numerical assessment, which is an objective expression of threat-to-life. In such cases we always recommend the input of a pathologist, who can then deal with the individual injury as opposed to the general situation.

For any solicitor representing a client charged with Dangerous Driving, the most important criteria to consider when instructing a collision investigator are competence, experience and an extensive understanding of the requirements of the criminal defence barrister. Any solicitor not attending to these basic requirements is failing to provide adequate representation to the client.