Texting peer gets prison Lord Ahmed, charged with dangerous driving after sending text messages shortly before hitting a car on the M1, has been jailed for 12 weeks. Ahmed was driving his Jaguar on Christmas Day 2007 when he hit a stationary car in the fast lane, killing the 28-year-old driver. Three minutes before he used his mobile to call …
Is that all? For killing someone in a way that verges on manslaughter? No wonder driving standards are so low in this country. He should have faced 5 years minimum, a life ban and had his peerage stripped. As for fine, none needed with a sentence like that.
Drivers need to be made to understand that their vehicle is a deadly weapon. They only way to do that is to hammer transgressors *hard*. I see about 5 drivers using their mobile every morning on my short commute. The police don't care.
This killer will be back in the Lords in a few weeks, head in tax-money trough, having us pay for his new chauffeur and not giving two shits about what he's done. He'll probably get to vote on bills about road safety! Just you watch.
While to my knowledge he didn't kill anyone, the accident had already happened when he hit the car, he is still a piece of vile scum, simply for using a phone while driving! I cannot tell you the hatred I feel for pieces of putrid rectum that put other's lives at risk because chatting to their mates is far more important than my safety! I have been narrowly missed at least 3 times in the last 2 years by these selfish f**kups!
The quicker captial punishment is introduced for "phone-driving" the better!
There often seems to be one rule for us and another for them... And, possibly, that this peer is a "ferret faced piece of scum" - I don't know.
However - in this case - the judge said that the "texting had nothing to do with the accident itself" - and, I presume that the statement "there was red car facing the wrong way in lane three" was provably true. So, it is possible, that the phone usage (inexcusable though it is) had little or nothing to do with the incident - whilst the "red car" could have been a surprise to any one of us depending on other circumstances (such as distractions finding CDs, changing station, day dreaming, pretty girl in car on the left).
I'm not saying he shouldn't have been clobbered harder (possibly).
It says texting was not connected to the accident. Why was there a car facing the wrong way in the fast lane of a motorway. A horrendous event for everyone concerned. If I hit a car which has gone spinning out of control on the motorway moments after receiving a text message even if the phone was in the glove box but after the event I pick up the phone to dial 999 should I expect to go to prison? Yes I know it says he was sending one but where do they draw the line?
Did any of the above commentards read the article.? He was not found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. It was just dangerous driving. There was no evidence linking the crash and the texting. Just read it FFS.
I have no sympathy with the retard and would have thrown the book at him anyway. As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between someone texting at 60mph who then kills someone and another person who was texting at 60mph and didn't kill someone is pure luck and law shouldn't differentiate between the lucky and unlucky.
But he was convicted of Dangerous Driving, in which case 12 weeks, a 12 month ban and (relatively) big fine is quite a heavy sentence.
As I say, I don't agree with it, but please read the fecking article before starting your down trodden masses speeches. You sound like a Monty Python parody!
Doesn't anyone read the story or do their background research before posting?
From the BBC: "Lord Ahmed's Jaguar hit an Audi car that had crashed into the central reservation and was lying stationary across the middle and outside lanes."
In other words, there was a fair chance that whether he was texting, phoning, adjusting the CD player or even just driving normally but not with the sharpest of reactions, he may have hit the stationary car in the 'fast' lane of a motorway.
I'm not disputing "one law for the rich... blah, blah," nor trying to explain away that this was a terrible accident, but there is a bit of a difference between someone ploughing their 40 tonne lorry into family driving along minding their own business because the driver fell asleep after 18 hours driving without a break, and not having fast enough reactions (phone induced or otherwise) to avoid an accident that had already taken place.
At least I assume that this is what was taken into consideration. That's the funny thing about UK law, it's really keen on facts and likely probablity. Not guesswork and conjecture.
That's just about the most stupid thing I've heard in ages. Suppose I'm driving my car and through no fault of my own, I'm hit by a drunk driver or some idiot speeding? Should I be impaled to death by those huge bloody spikes too because of someone else's mistake?
Try thinking that not every driver involved in an accident is to blame for Christ's sake!
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***"How, in the name of all that is fair and just, does somebody get 12 WEEKS, 6 points, and a *£500* fine for causing DEATH by dangerous driving?"***
He was only convicted of "dangerous driving", not "Death by dangerous driving". The beak, Mr Justice Wilkie, said "After a full and thorough police investigation it's clear the dangerous driving had no causal link to the accident."
Which, if there really was only 3 mins between the last txt and the 999 call, is bloody hard to believe. Having recently been in a smash, 3 mins is, IMHO, pretty close to the minimum time it takes to get over the immediate shock of the accident and gather enough wits to make a call.
"For a maximum sentence of 14 years, how such a low sentence for causing death by dangerous driving?"
He wasn;t convicted of causing death by dangerous driving. His texting (which was dangerous driving and which is why he was jailed) was not related to the death of the driver who was killed.
He had no chance of avoiding collision with the stationary car in the fast lane.
That said, I am not defending texting while driving - it is wrong and contemptible, but he did not cause death by dangerous driving - he drove dangerously for which he has been jailed and was subsequently involved in an accident.
just another example of sucking up to the minorities, why did that woman who killed a few while texting get so much more of a sentence last month?, she was at least not in the outside lane whilst texting and driving. If using a mobile was to carry £500 / 6 months jail and 6 points minimum, then they'd think about it more, the points dont matter as most who do it have no licence anyway, so points make no odds...hit them with fines and a sentence else they'll keep doing it.
I have a great idea...instead of contract killings using a gun, use a car and the most you get is a fine...make the Jackal look like an amateur, and walk away quids in
If I saw a car in the same lane as me, facing in my direction there would be something I'd be doing... slowing down and getting out of the way! For the judge to say that the text messages didn't contribute to the fatal crash is farcical. He obviously wasn't paying attention to what was on the road. For him to say "there was nothing I could do" is an insult to the chap he killed.
Remember that comment made about offenders being forcibly raped in prison (yep it was a dumb comment). I for one wouldn't give two fucks if Ahmed got gang-banged every day for the rest of this pathetically small sentence.
I agree with the other comments. When he gets out he won't have 'changed'. He'll still be a pompous shit head. Look at the way he threatened to mobilise 10,000 folks onto the streets of London in protest at Geert Wilders being invited to the House of Lords. He's a pompous, bullying, taxpayer-funded little shit.
"Is that all? For killing someone in a way that verges on manslaughter?"
Really? Do you honestly think that? An accident caused by a car being stationary in the outside lane of a motorway and you think this is the fault of the driver that hit it because sometime in the preceding 3 miles he sent a text?
Yes using a mobile while driving is dangerous, hence the custodial sentence but as the trial judge recognized this was not the cause of the accident. It's hardly like had he not used his phone before the incident occurred he suddenly would have been gifted the driving ability of a young Ayrton Senna and deftly swerved around the car inconveniencing no-one (apart perhaps from the driver behind who then would have had the accident...)
As I read it, he was convicted of dangerous driving but _not_ of causing death by dangerous driving (as all the other recent cases have been). Hence the short jail term in comparison.
Though I fail to see any significant differences between recent cases. All dangerous driving, shortly followed by an avoidable accident. Cause and effect presumed, and a jail sentence measured in years follows for most.
"For a maximum sentence of 14 years, how such a low sentence for causing death by dangerous driving?"
The man who died had been drinking, crashed his car late at night on an unlit motorway, and left it lying across two lanes without lights. And had he not returned to it to retrieve his mobile phone, he wouldn't have died. Another driver clipped the crashed car's mirror, and a third hit the central reservation while avoiding the crashed car.
Ahmed wasn't responsible for the death, and convicted only for the unrelated dangerous driving.
Apparently he was traveling @ 60+ mph and was texting for 17minutes. According to BBC News 24 His last text was sent when he was three miles from the accident...
According to the BBC Website:
"The court had heard how Lord Ahmed sent and received a series of five text messages while driving in the dark at speeds of, and above, 60mph along a 17-mile stretch of the motorway.
Mr Justice Wilkie made clear the texting incident had no bearing on the fatal collision.
He said: "After a full and thorough police investigation it's clear the dangerous driving had no causal link to the accident."
So it appears Mr Ahmed was NOT the cause of the accident, therefore his irresponsible texting did not cause the accident.
Mr Ahmed admitted in court to dangerous driving. So he is guilty of dangerous driving by his own admission. Now did he hit a car that had stopped as a result of an accident and kill the occupant whilst driving dangerously, or had the dangerous driving stopped before this impact? If not then is this not causing death by dangerous driving, and is not 12 weeks just a bit lenient? Any witnesses, what do they say?
Only with full and complete disclosure of the alleged crime and those events surrounding that crime can proper judgment ever be made.
For those who expect justice to be served, there is no justice in the UK only law.
Little extreme, don't you think? I was hit head on last year by a young girl who came over the center line. It was snowy and she lost control. The collision set off MY airbag (or in your world, a "huge bloody spike"), and I hadn't done anything wrong.
I agree this story is sad, and punishment laughable. He should spend about 2-3 years in the pokey and never have a license again.
...there are some important details here. For starters, he was convicted of dangerous driving, not death by dangerous driving. In other words, he was given the prison sentence for texting while driving. The judge said "It's clear the dangerous driving had no causal link to the accident." He wasn't given any punishment for causing the death of the other driver (who, incidentally, was drunk).
Another detail from the BBC: "One motorist had already clipped his car and another had to take evasive action to avoid it."
Re "Why did the lorry death driver get 3 years and a peer only 12 weeks?" Because the lorry driver ought to have been able to see the queue from over a mile away. It's clear in this case that the stationary vehicle was difficult to see on the *unlit* section of motorway.
Check the Telegraph online: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4804702/Labour-peer-Lord-Ahmed-jailed-for-motorway-texting.html
Essentially: Court told Audi driver had been drinking and had crashed his car into the central reservation in total darkness. Another car had clipped its wing mirror and a further vehicle had collided with the central reservation after taking avoiding action. The Audi was facing the wrong way, straddling the two outermost lanes, when Ahmed crashed into it. Audi driver thought to have returned to car to collect mobile when Ahmed crashed. Ahmed's text messaging session ended two minutes before the collision.
I think the road laws are wrong headed, as are the comments so far on this story. In general, whatever the road or speed, if you can clearly see there's nothing ahead or to the side of you within your braking distance, then you have brief moments of time which are enough to text/set tomtom/turn around to talk to passengers/flick radio stations and so on. There is no benefit from unstintingly scanning the open road when you can see there's nothing on it, but doing anything else has become a taboo. As always this leads to worse behaviour: when holding a mobile to your ear was deemed unsafe, before it was even illegal, every safety conscious person went out and bought a bluetooth headset. Blocking out half your hearing by wearing a bluetooth headset, imo, does a far better job of interfering with your faculties than holding a phone to your ear. I find them unusable.
I regularly text and speak on the phone while I drive, and have the naus to do it only when it's safe. I am coordinated and can manage this perfectly well. I have 12 years no claims and have acquired a total of 3 points in 14 years of driving - I'm a good driver. Having said that, I have had a couple (i.e. twice in a decade) of low-speed near misses while texting. I would love to try out the driving simulators used to show texting to be dangerous and see how I fare, and wonder if I'd have the option to decide not to text as I go through a blind corner.
Blanket banning specific activities whilst driving is weak, negative law. It's made on the basis that if some of society can't be trusted to do something, then it's banned for us all. People don't respect laws like that. Keep the existing careless and dangerous driving charges, which are more principles-based, allow them to be aggravated (by texting etc.) but don't ban the activities themselves. Arrived at a red light? Why not send a text?
In the Ahmed case, he could equally have been preparing another text, eyes down, when he crashed (ban texts), or, having finished his text session (during which he was also concentrating on the road), relaxed into the drive too much (ban texts?). Or the Audi could have been just over a hill and an accident waiting to happen come what may (ban driving?). If Ahmed hadn't texted at all during his journey, would the outcome be any different?
Whether he caused the accident or not - he still killed someone.
If his headlights didn't light-up his stopping-distance then he was driving too fast.
To drive safely on British roads means you *must be able to stop within the distance you can see*
Simple really.
If *YOU* couldn't have slowed-down and avoided/stopped then you too would have been driving too fast and guilty of manslaughter imo.
Please, please would you all go get some advanced driving lessons. Please.
If you can't see to the end of your stopping distance, you're going too fast. End of. Excess speed is never excusable (note "excess"). 12 weeks is a joke. Dangerous driving should carry minimum served of 6 months. As someone else said, a ban is a waste of time.
Paris 'cos the worst case of speeding I ever endured was in a taxi there.
The outside lane of a motorway is NOT the "fast lane" go read your highway code.
Secondly, if the peer had been paying DUE CARE AND ATTENTION to the road he should have been able to avoid hitting the stationary vehicle - it is not like the incident happened right in front of him and of course this is why we have SAFE STOPPING DISTANCES so even if it had happened right in front of him he would still have no excuse.
If people stopped speeding and stopped driving up each others arses the vast majority of RTAs would never happen - I have seen some appalling behaviour by other drivers both on the motorway and off (including the police and other public sector workers).
Well, I'm glad a few on here know the highway code (even if his lordship doesn't). You are supposed to drive within your stopping distance, at all times and under all road conditions. Dark, no excuse. Snow, fog etc. no excuse. *stationary* obstruction. *still* no excuse.
Should have been causing death by dangerous driving - can't understand how they got round that one. Regardless of the texting earlier. He was driving dangerously if he couldn't stop in time. At the very least, it should have been death by careless driving.
I got clobbered by a guy driving like a tw*t back in '99. I nearly left my wife a widow, spent 6 years getting patched up by surgeons and have permanent mobility problems and have not been considered for paid employment in IT or anywhere else since. Guess what, the guy was demonstrably driving like a tw*t, has done the same thing (turning right without at any point looking to his right) more than once before (at his own admission) and I think but couldn't prove had a mobile phone wedged under his right shoulder.
Punishment ? He got 6 points on his ticket and a 450 quid hundred fine, the maximum the magistrate could give. This isn't news. In fact I have heard people in the law business joke that if severely hacked off, rather than settle it outside in the carpark, a spot of careless driving would be the way to go as the penalties are neglible. This country has always taken the same view when it comes to road casualties. Oh, and we've also always treated our politicians and other ruling class transgressors differently to the working classes.
By the way, the clown that clobbered me was mini cab driver, and as far as I know, he still is.
As far as I'm concerned we need laws that are applied equally across all classes, races, creeds etc and after nearly getting taken out again 5 days ago (no damage to vehicle or persons this time) by an idiot using their mobile on a busy A road in Suffolk (studiously ignored by the cop car behind us), we need our cops to enforce the fscking laws we already have.
in order for someone to stop within the distance illuminated by dipped headlights they'd have to be driving at about 30mph. Driving at the estimated 60mph on a motorway late at night is perfectly reasonable.
Driving whilst pissed up, totaling your car and the going back to it to collect your phone across a pitch-black motorway is tantamount to suicide, and the fecking idiot deserved everything he got.
Why is nobody on here having a go at him for driving dangerously and DUI? He endangered his life and those of many others. I suspect there's prejudice by commentards here against the peer because he's "posh"
So there we are folks, you read it here. When MnM's luck runs out - for that is all it is, not 'skill' or 'judgement', luck - and he does cause an accident through using his mobile when driving, his confession is there on The Register at Wednesday 25th February 2009 15:22 GMT. I'm assuming 'he' BTW, can't imagine why.
MnM is obviously such a skilled driver that he can drive while not even looking at the road: so exceptional in fact that he single-handedly disproves and overturns all the research done on the subject in many separate studies across the world,
I was hit head-on by a phonedriver on my side of the road round a blind bend in 2002, before phone-driving was criminalised - what a shame it wasn't MnM coming the other way, I'd obviously have been fine in that case.
Mind you if MnM gets a seat in the House Of Lords in the mean time - and let's face it he's obviously pompous enough - and *then* his luck runs out, he'll get let out after a slap on the wrist, two days with a reduced caviar ration, and a large bar bill for the trial judge next time they're both in the Carlton Club together ...
No, I was passing a junction decked out like your proverbial christmas tree. The guy simply failed to give way or give a toss and drove straight into me, unable to look to his right ( I believe I have a memory of the guy) having a moby wedged between ear and shoulder. Either way, he didn't look at any point and failed to give way, My motorcycle and I ended up with limited options and had to pick which part of his motor was least likely to sever my head. Whilst I flew over his car into oncoming traffic so did my bike, which hit me apparently....
He did make a half hearted effort at driving away from the scene too. The cops that nicked him were gob smacked at both his attitude, magnitude of his f*ck up, and when he started crying that he'd done this before at least twice.
So no, I wasn't overtaking at a junction.
'confession is there on The Register at Wednesday 25th February 2009 15:22 GMT'
Yep. Let's waterboard El Reg's editor, my ISP's data protection officer, and then me, MnM (you'd need me to say that I wasn't just commenting for effect).
While we're at it, CCTVs in all cars trained on the driver, please - it's the only way to be sure what these criminals-in-waiting are up to.
Please read what I wrote: if you can see beyond your braking distance, you have time to momentarily take eyes off the road, which is what people do in cars anyway to change satnav/temperature/music/whatever. That's not the case on a blind bend. Sounds like you got hit by an idiot, which is fitting.
See, this is what happens when you listen to Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear and believe it to be a informative motoring programme, when it's nothing more than heavily scripted entertainment. Anyone remember the "speed up if you have a snaking caravan" comment and what that led to?
All the Mob above , wanting the blood of this Peer, should learn to read and comprehend what they read.
Has the thing called comprehension been abolished in schools.
Or maybe it was never taught in UK.
I am 12000 miles away in the South Pacific and it was and may still be taught here.
You inverted snobs: a peer today is a generic term for all in the House of Lords as well as those hereditary ones booted out. So most "peers" in the House of Lords are faded potiticians or party funders and hacks promoted beyond their ability to a party-licking sinecure and, judging by most of them, sadly worse than their hereditary predecessors in education, ability or entertainment value. They are simply appointed from the usual list of self-selecting business, lawyer and union types to continue looking after theri own interests - and do not suggest elections as the answer, just to get an even more self-satisfied bunch of never-wozzer rubber stamps.
Anyway, whatever the merits of the dead man, I doubt he is any more dead because he was hit by a life peer than if hit by a poverty-stricken pensioner. The only valid point in all the stuff above is that, almost by definition, the culprit was breaking every law of proper driving (speed, visibility, care, attention) and that dangerous driving is an extremely serious offence as it involves an element of driving "recklessly" (hence the distinction from driving without due care and attention). Rest assured that his motor insuraners will punish him more expensively and for longer!
Sad to me that we are so idiotic that de facto evidence of careless driving such as using a mobile telephone while driving needs a specific prohibition when all ready covered by existing laws.
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