escalating violence in our community Become a member of the Sensible Sentencing Trust

Mouseover links or blue arrows above for full page descriptions

Licensed To Kill - Drink Drivers in NZ

By Megan McPherson who represents the Sensible Sentencing Trust on impaired driving issues. Her brother, Jonathan Cutler Keogh, aged 28, was killed by 68 year old recidivist drunk-driver, David Graham Cashman, near Rolleston on Mother’s day, 2006. Mr Cashman was almost twice the legal limit when he smashed into Jonathan’s car at great speed. At the time Cashman was due in court for other serious driving charges, he is currently part-way through serving a three-year prison sentence. TVNZ story here

New Zealand’s laws for recidivist drunk drivers are wholly inadequate. In many ways the law remains the drunk driver’s friend. Their victims come last.

New Zealand remains one of the few countries in the First World that continually returns drivers licences to repeat drunk or drugged drivers. The penalties for killing, crippling, and maiming other road users are shamefully light. They offer little incentive for repeat offenders to modify their potentially lethal habits. Instead, their sociopathic behaviour kills 50 New Zealanders each year, and they injure a further 700. In 2006 approximately 29,000 people were convicted for drunk driving, this figure is increasing at around 1000 a year.

There are drunk drivers who have lost their licences 20 times on New Zealand’s roads today. These offenders have been through the legal system time and time again; they know it well. It is highly likely they have driven drunk on a regular basis, only to be caught on atypical occasions.

It is evident that these individuals cannot be educated. The pervasive social marketing advertising campaigns portraying drunk driving have no cut-through with these people. These drivers consider the return of their driver’s licence as a right. New Zealand’s justice system confirms this expectation by continually rewarding these high-risk offenders by returning their licence to kill.

Does treatment work? Treatment programmes have a 10 per cent success rate for first time “graduates”. (TV3 60 Minutes, reporter Rod Vaughn, March 19, 2007). Criminologist Greg Newbold recently stated that, in his experience, many alcoholic and drug addict offenders volunteer for treatment programmes in order to advance their case for parole, not because they are interested in others’ safety. The Sensible Sentencing Trust says these drivers must have their licences permanently revoked.

The legal test for manslaughter with a motor vehicle is so high that the vast majority of killer drivers receive lesser charges, and serve less than three years in prison. Most drunk drivers that kill in New Zealand can only be charged with excess breath alcohol causing death; they should be charged with manslaughter, or murder.

It is standard for drivers that kill to be sentenced for manslaughter in Australia, the UK, Europe and the US. The penalties in these countries are usually between five and 20 years. These counties are also far more progressive in their use of innovative measures, including the use of compulsory interlock devices, marked licence plates for repeat offenders, and more efficient police tracking systems. These counties also have higher regard for victims. It is common practice for victims, and their families, to successfully take civil cases against drunk drivers.

Contrast this to New Zealand where we all recently endured ACC’s five million dollar mass-media advertising campaign telling offenders that; “we have got you covered, no matter what.” It is indefensible for a tax-funded organisation, headed by a Minister with a drink-driving conviction, to send such an encouraging message to offenders who have no meaningful insight into their self-deceiving habits.

There is little difference between a terrorist walking into a shopping mall and wildly shooting into a crowd of innocent people, and a drunk-driver recklessly traversing the centre line on a public road. Their propensity to destroy human life is the same; their weapons of choice are equally destructive, and the end result for innocent victims is identical.

New Zealand should expect, and deserves, better than the current system which recycles hard-core recidivists. This view is reinforced by recent comments from coroners, judges, the police, victims’ families and community groups.

The need is clear: the community will not be safe until our laws for impaired driving are significantly strengthened. An enforced lifetime ban is required for drivers with three convictions for drunk or drugged driving. If this ban is ignored, preventative detention measures are required. This should be reinforced with considerably tougher penalties for repeat offenders.

Further, the existing definition of manslaughter needs to be changed. Prosecutors must be able to charge drunk or drugged drivers with manslaughter where they kill other road users.

A law change is not about penalising people for having a beer after work or sport. It is about having effective criminal sanctions in place for the 3000 repeat offenders who are most likely to destroy the lives of others. It is about making the roads civilised, safe places for law abiding New Zealanders. It is about stopping these people making more victims. Any one of us could be killed, or lose loved-ones to the actions of these offenders. Life is too precious; let’s get these destructive killers off our roads.

See also Bikers Against Drunk Drivers set up by a lady who lost her partner to a drunk driver. The statistics page is extremely informative.