Saturday, December 16, 2017

SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES NEEDED FOR DANGEROUS DRIVING

A careless driving conviction under the provincial Highway Traffic Act carries the risk of six months in jail, a $2,000 fine and — which has always struck me as most absurd — a paltry two-year driving prohibition, with reinstatement not even subject to recertification under Ontario’s demonstrably ineffective driver training and testing regime.
And that doesn’t happen often. Only about 20 per cent of those charged with careless driving in Ontario are convicted — 6,700 out of 34,084 in 2016. Just 16 were sentenced to jail time. Most people head into traffic court to fight a careless driving charge just as they would had they been caught speeding or running a red light, hoping to beg and plead their way down to something less ruinous to their insurance bill. Most succeed. It’s no different in cases when someone dies.

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