Drink Driving Offence in UK Law

First, the offence of driving while over the legal limit is not an offence which requires the court to ascertain the intent of the accused at all. Conviction follows after a scientific test which is intended to be as exact as possible. Second, in most cases such test is exact or, to the extent it is less than exact, the inexactness will work in favour of the accused.

With respect to the Divisional Court in Wars, I conclude that it does not apply the approach in Assange. therefore prefer the decision of Ouseley J, who had to inquire as to whether that was the inevitable or only reasonable inference that could be drawn from those facts and applying the law as he understood it to be and as is subject to the commentary in Archbold cited earlier in this judgment.

There is, however, a danger in relation to the higher starting points of the sentencer, if he is not careful, double accounting. The sentencer must be careful not to use the same aggravating factors to place the sentence in a higher category and then add to it because of the very same aggravating features.

The Road Traffic Act 1991 created two new offences by way of amendment of the Road Traffic Act 1988. Section 1 of the 1991 Act substituted for sections 1 and 2 of the 1988 Act the new offence of causing death by dangerous driving, thereby replacing the offence of causing death by reckless driving. At one time earlier in the somewhat chequered history of road traffic offences there had been an offence of causing death by dangerous driving.

Everyone knows, or should know, that the consumption of even small quantities of alcohol undermines the ability of any driver to apply his full concentration to the road. Where the consumption is high, it is effectively extinguished. Alcohol makes a driver personally unfit to drive, and the car of which he is in control becomes as dangerous with him at the wheel as if it were subject to a serious known, potentially fatal, mechanical defect.

It is evident that the power of the police to require information to be given as to the identity of the driver of a vehicle only arises where the driver is alleged to be guilty of an offence to which the section applies.