Another horrific example here. You have to wonder what sentences he received for the two previous convictions.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/07/man-found-guilty-of-after-dragging-victim-under-car-in-surrey

The jury heard Eastwood had convictions for two previous offences involving a car, including an incident in September 2018, when he drove a stolen vehicle at a cyclist, knocking him to the ground and causing him multiple fractures. Then in April 2019, he drove a stolen vehicle at a man, knocking him to the ground and causing him abrasions.

Guardian are usually good at this sort of thing but…

Their leading sentence describes the perp as a “driver”. In the detail he sounds like a murdering scumbag with a weapon of choice.

Does careless use of language linking this individual’s behaviour to the general notion of a “driver” lower the tone of public discourse? If you’re wearing a hoodie and you shank a gang member is the crime committed by a pedestrian?

I’m not sure the semantics of the reporting are the key thing here.

There seem to be more and more “people in cars” using them to deliberately cause injury or worse to others.

I know without video evidence it’s hard to verify one person’s word against another’s, but there needs to be proper recognition in the charging and sentencing that a car is a potentially lethal weapon and using one as such should be treated the same as a knife.

should have planted a bike on him before driving off.

Does careless use of language linking this individual’s behaviour to the general notion of a “driver” lower the tone of public discourse?

I think when you start making the distinction that someone who uses a vehicle as a weapon is not a driver it actually has the opposite effect from you intend! What matters is that the police, prosecution and courts are not treating this sort of offending as some sort of road traffic accident but are correctly prosecuting it for the malice and culpability that were involved. The journalist’s purpose is to explain to the public what happened, I don’t think referring to him as anything other than the driver does that – it leaves some question mark in your head whether he was actually sitting behind the steering wheel and operating the peddles.

That the jury were told of his previous convictions means that the judge assessed the appropriateness of informing the jurors of the defendants bad character as proven by those convictions for similar offences.

While modern life is polarising sane individuals into extreme versions of themselves in particular circumstances, this guy sounds like he has long been at the far end of the bell curve.

The other problem of a general drift and decline in driving standards and emboldened aggression behind the wheel *is* likely swayed by semantics in reporting. We often bitch about it when it is the other way round and we call it “victim-blaming”. Surely that has a flip side if sane human beings want to hold on to the moral high ground.

I naively assumed he would have got a custodial sentence for the offence against the cyclist. But now looking at the timeline, I wonder whether it had been fully dealt with by the time he committed the murder.

Jesus, that’s horrific. Poor bloke.

That must surely merit a healthy jail sentence. Third offence (aged 22), chillingly premeditated – they actually went back looking for them – and his defence is it was an accident?

Does careless use of language linking this individual’s behaviour to the general notion of a “driver” lower the tone of public discourse?

Straight to the nub of the matter there.

I naively assumed he would have got a custodial sentence for the offence against the cyclist. But now looking at the timeline, I wonder whether it had been fully dealt with by the time he committed the murder.

Yeah, the previous offence was 7 months before the third and as it took nearly 3 years for this one to be settled, the second was probably not tried. Got to wonder why he was not on remand after 2 similar incidents though.

**** hell. Doubtful prison will do much in the way of rehabilitation though, he’ll drop out the other end with even less opportunity and options. That’s if his behaviour doesn’t find himself adding to his sentence and discomfort.

Sadly once some people stray from the (metaphorical) path, there’s very little hope of getting them back on it. I think he’s probably one such individual.

stray onto the path

FTFY. Defence stated it was an accident

Does careless use of language linking this individual’s behaviour to the general notion of a “driver” lower the tone of public discourse? If you’re wearing a hoodie and you shank a gang member is the crime committed by a pedestrian?

No, because the definition of pedestrian isn’t “someone carrying a shank” 🙄

Completely false comparison/equivalence.

Nicely done.

FTFY. Defence stated it was an accident

People like this, those that constantly take from society (lives, cars, goodness knows what else) should be made to spend the rest (or at least a significant proportion) of their lives paying back to society. Ankle bracelet and made to walk everywhere – cleaning streets, decorate public spaces, laying roads and cycleways all at minimum wage – make things better for the societies they’ve taken from and pay them from the prison budget. They should be worked so hard that they’re too tired at the end of a day to even contemplate going out to cause mischief. Prison isn’t the answer – If this chump had been made to work 60+ hours a week, he wouldn’t have been out nicking cars and stalking pubs in the evening.

That must surely merit a healthy jail sentence. Third offence (aged 22), chillingly premeditated – they actually went back looking for them – and his defence is it was an accident?

He was found guilty of murder – that’s a mandatory life sentence. The judge will need to decide how long before he can apply for parole. I’d be surprised if that is <20 yrs.

His mate in the other car pled guilty to manslaughter, that may be more interesting to see how that gets sentenced.

Doubtful prison will do much in the way of rehabilitation though, he’ll drop out the other end with even less opportunity and options.

It could also depend on the length of sentence. If he’s pushing 50 when he comes out, he’s no young man any more, options as you say will be limited, and there might be more incentive to resume a criminal career as he’ll be mixing with career criminals most of his adult life.It will be a stark choice of little income or high fleeting income from drugs at the risk of further prison sentences.

This is a case of young men being full of their own power and ready to fight against any slight, as the circumstances of this appear to be, two groups having a go at each other has escalated into murder. We’ve seen that time and time again.

Perhaps the shift of money with a greater gap between rich and poor coupled with the corruption we see at the top and in business has led the younger members of the community to look towards the instant buzz of having money, sex,drugs and pushed the morals into 3rd place. A them and us system of living your life. Tomorrow no longer matters only today.

No, because the definition of pedestrian isn’t “someone carrying a shank” 🙄

Completely false comparison/equivalence.

What if the pedestrian used their feet/shoes to kill someone? ie kicked them to death?

Is that equivalent/comparable?

Yeah, it wasn’t the walker, it was those pesky boots.

Look, this is surely a silly diversion. The accused was driving the car, he was ipso facto “a driver”. If the angle here is a parallel with “cyclist” vs “someone on a bicycle” then it falls down because unlike on a bike we need to differentiate between driver and passenger.

Does “someone driving a car” have any more clarity over “a driver”? Description and detail is part of telling a story, otherwise every news report would be “someone did something, and something bad happened.”

If the article had said “a man” rather than “a driver” there would be someone popping up going “well, I don’t see what his gender has to do with anything. Was he driving the car with his penis? Eh? EH?!”

What if the pedestrian used their feet/shoes to kill someone? ie kicked them to death?

Only if they were shoes you couldn’t drive in 😀. High heels perhaps. You know…. stilettos…

Which takes us nicely back to

shank

! 🤨

I know without video evidence it’s hard to verify one person’s word against another’s, but there needs to be proper recognition in the charging and sentencing that a car is a potentially lethal weapon and using one as such should be treated the same as a knife.

Perhaps if the default position was to class the vehicle as a weapon, unless demonstrated other wise and penalise accordingly, people would be a bit more careful in their general driving.

It disgusts me how the UK treat cars/driver as our equivalent of a Sacred cow.
you can literally get away with murder as long as you use a car.
repeatedly break all the rules in the book and you can still argue that losing your car would cause you hardship as you wouldnt be able to drive your ******* kids to school.

Start taking people cars off them for certain rule breaking.
No appeals, no arguing hardship in court. Banned. Get on the bus.

Start doing that and see how quickly the standard of peoples care and attention on the road jumps up. Would your “transgressions” over 30mph in town be cut back if you knew pc plod could snap a picture of you and come and take your car away the same day? I know mine would.
Either way it would get a lot of appalling drivers off the road, and might go some way to alleviating congestion, and air pollution too.

Look, this is surely a silly diversion. The accused was driving the car, he was ipso facto “a driver”. If the angle here is a parallel with “cyclist” vs “someone on a bicycle” then it falls down because unlike on a bike we need to differentiate between driver and passenger.

Totally agree with that. A point well made.

And

should have planted a bike on him before driving off.

Has the paradoxical effect of both lowering the tone of discourse while also ringing (horribly) true.

I think the use of a Car is a relevant fact, labelling the perp a “Driver” as opposed to “Vehicle controller”(?) is really rather an irrelevant distinction to get hung up on.

Perhaps the thing to focus on (and most concerning) is:

The jury heard Eastwood had convictions for two previous offences involving a car, including an incident in September 2018, when he drove a stolen vehicle at a cyclist, knocking him to the ground and causing him multiple fractures. Then in April 2019, he drove a stolen vehicle at a man, knocking him to the ground and causing him abrasions.

His prior pattern of behaviour suggests that He’d already learned that stealing a car and driving it into people would yield more lenient treatment by the courts than using his other types of weapon…

He’s got an MO, and has been allowed to continue expressing his anger with borrowed bumpers until he ended up killing someone. Perhaps harsher sentencing for offence one or two might have prevented offence three? I know, purely speculative but I do think Society as a whole is currently predisposed to view offences involving cars in a less serious way than equivalents.

you can literally get away with murder as long as you use a car.

Well, apart from this chap who’s just been found guilty of murder, using a car… But I take your point.

and you can still argue that losing your car would cause you hardship as you wouldnt be able to drive your ******* kids to school.

Well, that’s not usually accepted as grounds for hardship but

Start taking people cars off them for certain rule breaking.
No appeals, no arguing hardship in court. Banned. Get on the bus

This, absolutely this. Even if its just a month for minor/first offences. Once people understand actions WILL have consequences, behaviour will change.

and you can still argue that losing your car would cause you hardship as you wouldnt be able to drive your ******* kids to school.

Well, that’s not usually accepted as grounds for hardship

No it’s not – but that doesn’t stop people on here pretending that it does, and thus adding to the confusion around what is Exceptional Hardship and the myth that everyone who gets 12 points just needs to ask the court nicely and they’ll keep their license.

Realistically though I’d be surprised if someone with his record had a license anyway. Instead of getting irate about the people who have managed to convince a court that their situation (or usually the situation of some innocent third party) would be exceptionally worse if they were banned for 6 months – I’d be focussing my attention on those who frequently drive having never passed a test to drive, an offence which is treated no more seriously by parliament than using a mobile phone behind the wheel.