Prison for car texts menaces backed
Motorists caught texting on their mobile phones while driving deserve to be sent to prison, one of the Government's top law officers has told a Midland MP.
Solicitor General Vera Baird QC made her comments in the Commons in response to a suggestion from South Staffordshire MP Sir Patrick Cormack that people who cause death by dangerous or careless driving might be sentenced to community rather than custodial sentences.
Veteran Conservative Sir Patrick said: "Many people who cause death by careless or inconsiderate driving are not of the criminal fraternity.
"Although they should certainly be very severely punished, a community sentence, rather than a custodial one, is very often a better way to punish them."
Miss Baird replied: "We leave sentencing to judges, within parameters that are set down by Parliament.
"It is a very serious matter to drive a vehicle carelessly. In a number of cases recently, people have been texting while driving cars."
"Such rashness, carelessness and dangerousness ought to be met with imprisonment," she said.
Stafford Labour MP David Kidney said: "We should remember cases like the Portuguese lorry driver who ploughed into the back of a car on the M6 and wiped out a family."
Labour peer Lord Ahmed was jailed for 12 months for dangerous driving this week. He had admitted to texting while driving on the M1 just before being involved in a fatal crash.