A BLUNT INSTRUMENT
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Your article "Courts toughen jail terms for truck drivers who kill" (CM7-13 June) raised many interesting and important points. It is not justice to judge a person by the results of their actions if those actions could not possibly have been foreseen, If you collide with an old vehicle in which no one was wearing seat-belts then there will likely be a quite different outcome from a situation in which you hit a modern one with all the latest safety technology. Hitting someone on a remote road, miles from any medical help, will have a different outcome from that of a similar impact outside a leading teaching hospital.
Causing injury, or worse, to a fellow dtizen by using a blunt instrument is rightWudged largely by the motive, unless thai blunt instrument happens to be the front of a motor vehicle.
Travel with an insecure loac and the consequences will largely depend on pure chance but all too often it is the consequences which determine whether any prosecutions follow.
Arguably the two most popular laws among legislator: and politicians are speeding and drink-driving. Popular because they do not involve subjective judgements and car therefore provide the courts with irrefutable evidence to obtain a conviction—but the question of whether in any given situation innocent lives were put at risk is not even addressed. In far too many cases, lives have been tragically lost through indifference, inattention, stupidity or a myriad of other common human failures, yet we see lawyers performing mental gymnastics to exonerate the culprits.
As for justice, you can be sure that innocent victims or their next of kin will be the last to receive consideration or speedy compensation.
Anthony G Phillips, Salisbury, Wilts.