SMS driver gets 4 yrs

Is there something I'm missing here?
only heard radio briefly but a guy who wasnt drinking, looking at his
SMS's on phone while driving kills 2 passengers and gets 4 years jail

Silvia Ciach killed cyclist Anthony Marsh and gets zippo!

WTF????????????????


--
flyingdutch

will it ever change....the fact that these accidents do not change
anything is just plain sad

oh and let's not have another "youse a dumb block-head mate" slinging
match as per my similar remarks with reference to German driver and
Australian women's cyclists...


flyingdutch Wrote:
Is there something I'm missing here?
only heard radio briefly but a guy who wasnt drinking, looking at his
SMS's on phone while driving kills 2 passengers and gets 4 years jail

Silvia Ciach killed cyclist Anthony Marsh and gets zippo!

WTF????????????????


--
endroll

flyingdutch Wrote:
I'm sure Anthony Marsh's family and friends are playing a social game of
'spot the similarities' as we speak

If this kid's sentence was to deter people, why is there such a blatant
lower value placed on a cyclist's life and lower sentence to boot. What
message is that? What deterent is that?
SweetFA. Again.

Firstly let me say that I am not attempting to argue that a cyclist's
life has any lesser value than another non-cyclist's life or that
hitting a cyclist in a car is not a terrible thing to do. Like FD, I
am trying to make some sense of the 2 cases.

Taking the Age's report as an accurate and reasonably complete
statement of the facts, the bits that jump out at me a

1. Ciach was charged and convicted of 1 offence. Johnstone was charged
and convicted of 3 times that many offences. Ciach killed 1 person.
Johnstone killed 2 people and badly injured 1 person.

2. Ciach received a suspended jail term on the urging of the
_victim's_family_. The desires of the victim's family seem to have been
taken into account in sentencing Ciach. Sounds like she would be in
jail now if not for the "urging of the victim's family".

3. Depending on the terms of the judgement, if Ciach does the wrong
thing (not sure what the 'wrong thing' is, as I have not seen the court
orders), she goes to jail. She will do 2 years (less good behaviour etc
same as Johnstone).

4. The Judge's comments as reported give a very stong flavour that
the Court is starting to get tougher on SMSing that causes fatal
accidents. Reading between the lines, the next person that kills
someone due to mobile phone use in a vehicle is likely to get a tougher
punishment again.

I may be unnaturally optomistic (or even a bit thick), but I do not
read any significance into the fact that the earlier 'lighter'
punishment concerned the death of a cyclist while the later 'harsher'
punishment concerned the deaths of 2 non-cyclists and the serious
injury of a third non-cyclist.

Like I said, I'm not looking to minimise the seriousness of the Ciach
case but trying to reconcile the 2 sentences.

And I think you have to say that the Courts getting tough on idiots who
use mobile phones while driving is a good thing.

SteveA


--
SteveA

got on the blower to John Faine a little while ago and ranted about the
SMS driver subject and suggested rather than fining the drivers, take
the phone off them.
About an hour later someone sent in a friggin great suggestion asking
why dont Insurance Co's NOT cover people who cause accidents when
SMSing is involved. JF just had a spokeperson from AAMI on.
I'm guessin this could have legs, as any insurance Co will love the
opportunity NOT to pay out

stay tuned...


--
flyingdutch

flyingdutch wrote:

About an hour later someone sent in a friggin great suggestion asking
why dont Insurance Co's NOT cover people who cause accidents when
SMSing is involved.

That would be absolutely great for the victims, wouldn't it.
Would you feel better knowing that the person who hits you while on the
phone is not insured?

Theo

flyingdutch Wrote:
got on the blower to John Faine a little while ago and ranted about the
SMS driver subject and suggested rather than fining the drivers, take
the phone off them.
About an hour later someone sent in a friggin great suggestion asking
why dont Insurance Co's NOT cover people who cause accidents when
SMSing is involved. JF just had a spokeperson from AAMI on.
I'm guessin this could have legs, as any insurance Co will love the
opportunity NOT to pay out

stay tuned...
Confiscate the phone. Ban them from owning or using a phone for an
appropriate period of time.

SteveA


--
SteveA

In article ,
"Theo Bekkers" wrote:

That would be absolutely great for the victims, wouldn't it.
Would you feel better knowing that the person who hits you while on the
phone is not insured?

It would be like the situation with drink driving. In Victoria, injuries
are covered by no-fault compulsory insurance via the Transport Accident
Commission, and third parties are covered; it's just the driver's car
that's not covered.

--
Shane Stanley

Shane Stanley Wrote:

It would be like the situation with drink driving. In Victoria,
injuries
are covered by no-fault compulsory insurance via the Transport
Accident
Commission, and third parties are covered; it's just the driver's car
that's not covered.

--
Shane Stanley

Yeah, the AAMI guy made a reference to that...


--
flyingdutch

It's truly scarry being on the road at present and more people are
going to get hurt.

I was walking down Spingvale Road yesterday to pick up my bike which
was being serviced.

Out of the first 20 cars that passed in the opposite direction 4 were
on mobile phones and one was trying to read the newspaper while he was
driving - insanity prevails!

Karl aka Stomper

Nah - take their license away and stop them from driving!


Karl aka Stomper