Monday 10 August 2009

How the judicial system protects killer drivers

She was 60 years old.

Mrs Peters was crossing the road, in Leatherhead, Surrey, in August last year after getting off a bus when she was hit by postman Darren Blight of Mole Road, Fetcham.

He was doing 60 mph in a 30 mph limit, on a long straight road.

Blight, 26, was the typical murderous boy-racer yob who is indulged by Britain’s politicians, police and judicial system

He drove a VW Golf turbo – a piece of lethal machinery cynically designed to flout the national maximum speed limit. One adoring website claims a top speed of 174 mph. Needless to say, don’t expect Britain’s car supremacist police to be raiding VW factories or sales outlets. Some forms of criminal conspiracy enjoy the active complicity of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

The VW Golf Turbo is the weapon of choice of reckless boy racers and Blight (an apt name) was happy to use it as such.

In 2005 he was twice convicted of speeding. But speeding, like chattering into a handheld mobile phone, is regarded with indulgence by the police, parliament and the courts. For the first offence you get three points on your licence – and can go on driving. To be caught speeding twice in a year is regarded as a harmless trifle. You don’t lose your licence until you have been caught engaged in murderous recklessness FOUR TIMES.

A traffic collision expert concluded that had he been driving within the speed limit for his entire journey Mrs Peters would have safely completed her crossing before Blight had even arrived at the scene.

Blight got 27 months in jail (effectively 13½ months).

The real scandal is that the judge banned him from driving for three years.

Darren Blight should never be allowed to drive again. But the right to drive is the most entrenched human right in our society.

More on this case here