Driving Without Due Care And Attention

No longer is driving without due care and attention an acceptable defense. Momentary lapses of attention are not allowed as an excuse now, and improper driving is an offense that can land you in jail!

Organisations such as MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) have been lobbying for this change in the law for a long time and now different parts of the country have varying levels of punishments for the offences depending on the severity of the results of the careless driving.

What is somewhat surprising is that people dont seem to take this offence very seriously. In fact, people seem more willing to offer advice about how to avoid the charge than anything else! On an online discussion forum, we came across a man who had been charged with driving carelessly because he had been spinning his wheels on gravel by revving the car very high. The police officer that charged him said in his report that there was an open petrol pump nearby and so could have caused large scale damage and potential injuries to many people. The question he put forward on the forum was that if he could prove that the petrol pump was closed, would that help his case? And to our surprise, around fifty people had replied to him with advice about how to avoid punishment saying that if he could prove something in the officers report wrong then hed have a better case etc.

Every year there are thousands of deaths or serious injuries on the roads as a result of negligent driving and we dont really take notice. Tens of thousands of people lose their licences every year because of careless driving, at least temporarily and many of them just turn up back behind the wheel without a valid licence! Even though the people in the surrounding neighbourhood may well know about it, most people will not pull them up on it, and this is what causes most of the motoring offences on our roads.

Though driving without due care and attention is a relatively lower ranking offense when compared to drunk driving or cell phone driving, it still is one of the biggest causes for accidents, and needs to be addressed with greater authority.