Drivers Who Kill Panorama

Tonight on Panorama: Fatal distraction on Britain's roads, as

the law struggles to hold drivers who kill to account, are we doing

enough to curb distracted driving? We just can't keep on loading

drivers more and more and more and not expect that it won't have an

impact on the safety of people's driving. Only one in three convicted

of killing through careless driving receives a custodial sentence. I

would love the magistrates to tell us why they thought that sentence

was adequate for killing our dad. Are prosecutors and the courts

getting it wrong? And as the modern driver demands more and more from

their car's infotainment system are motor manufacturers making things

worse? There's no controversy whatsoever, using a secondary device

of some kind in your car increases your likelihood that you're going to

be in a crash. If five people died in a train crash

tonight, it would make headline news. If five more died tomorrow

night, we'd freeze the network. In this country, five people die on the

roads every day. Road deaths seldom make headlines. It's as if we accept

them as a fact of life, but is that complacency leading to an injustice

to victims and their families? Recent changes in the law have vowed

to dispel a feeling that we've gone soft on dangerous driving. The

things drivers get up to behind the wheel never fail to amaze. This

driver takes hand free to a new level, 30 seconds at more than 60mph

with his hands behind his head. For this driver, knowing where he was

going was more important than seeing where he was heading. And for this

motorist, a flat battery was surely the least of his worries.

Fortunately, no-one in these examples lost their lives. When bad

driving kills, does the law hold drivers to account. ? On 24th May,

2012, 39-year-old Joe Wilkins was cycling along this road, just six

miles from his home. A car approached from that direction and

drove straight into the back of Joe, killing him instantly. Investigators

found the driver had 13 seconds to see Joe. The jury were told he had

six-and-a-half seconds to react. Put yourself in the driver's seat for

that length of time. Visibility was good and the driver claimed his eyes

had been firmly on the road. But he didn't see Joe. What I kind -- I

kind of always liked Joe, even from the age of five. I put a note in his

drawer when he was five to ask him if he'd marry me, basically. He was

funny. He was kind. He was a family man. On the evening that Joe was

killed, Nic had to return home and break the news to their eldest

daughter. She was five years old and she'd just lost her best friend too

at that point. The scream that came out of her little mouth was just,

yeah, it's something that I won't ever forget. The driver was charged

with causing death by dangerous driving which carries a maximum

sentence of 14 years. Shortly before the trial, prosecutors added the the

alternative charge of causing death by careless driving, to which the

defendant pleaded guilty. My expectations from the start was that

he would be found guilty of death by dangerous driving, which is what we

were going for and that he'd go to prison. How did you feel about the

fact that he was found not guilty of dangerous driving? Devastated, to be

fair. Because I can't see, to this day, that it was anything other than

dangerous driving. How do you feel about the jury's verdict? They heard

the evidence and made the decision. Yeah, if you try to put yourself

into a juror's position, you can see that they could feel for the person

stood in the dock telling their story of what happened, because that

could be them. Probably most of them are drivers. Found not guilty of

death by dangerous driving, the driver received one of the lowest

possible sentences for death by careless driving, 240 hours

community service and a year's driving ban. The judge concluded the

collision had been due to momentary inattention. From the moment the

jury said "not guilty", I think we were more and more let down from

there. Mainly by the judge, I suppose. I certainly wouldn't want

to be on the roads with anybody that classes that as just careless.

Solicitor Paul Kitson works at one of the UK's largest law firms and

has vast experience in pursuing civil fatal accident claims. The

difference between death by careless driving and death by dangerous

driving is that with careless cases the standard of driving falls below

a careful and competent driver, whereas, for danger Russ driving,

the -- dangerous driving, the standard falls far below that of a

careful and competent driver. What is meant by "far below" is not

particularly clear. There is much conclusion with the judiciary about

where that dividing line falls. Before 2008, momentary lapses in

concentration which resulted in death were generally charged as

careless driving, which doesn't carry a custodial sentence. The new

law, causing death by careless driving, carries a maximum five-year

sentence. There was a gap in the law and it needed to be filled. The

trouble is that gap in the law has been used to capture case that's

ought to be dangerous driving cases. According to road safety charity

Brake, the new law is failing to deliver justice. We are seeing time

and time again families who are already traumatised and grieving, as

a result of being bereaved or seriously injured in a road crash,

feeling grossly let down and their pain added to by what goes on within

the criminal justice system. So is the careless driving law being used

to deal with dangerous drivers? In the last year, before the new charge

was brought in, 233 people were convicted of causing death by

dangerous driving. In 2013, a total of 310 people were convicted of

causing death by dangerous or careless driving. So that means that

more people were held to account for killing from behind the wheel.

However, of those convictions, only 109 were convicted of death by

dangerous driving. That means since the new charge was made available to

prosecutors, convictions for the more serious charge fell by 53%.

What's behind this startling fall? What we're seeing is plea bargaining

happening, where motorists are accepting a plee for death by

careless driving and they are contesting the dangerous driving

charge. In many cases the dangerous driving charges are dropped if

there's a guilty plea entered for careless driving and if the case

does go to court, the judges themselves are slow to make strong

jury recommendations or directions to convict for the dangerous driving

charge. In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service told Panorama:

Getting the charge right is not the only problem. When it comes to

causing death by careless driving, there are concerns that the sentence

doesn't always reflect the severity of the crime. 72-year-old Brian

Pattinson from County Durham had an impeccable driving record. Dad was a

really careful driver because his oldest son, Tony, was killed on the

road when he was very young, about three or four. That made dad real

lay ware of how dangerous the roads can be. On 17 July, 2012, Brian's

car was hit head on when a driver failed to see stationary traffic at

this junction. He died in hospital the following morning. His killer

wars convicted of causing death -- killer was convicted of causing

death by dangerous driving but avoided jail. He was given an

18-month community supervision order, a 12-month driving ban and

ordered to pay ?85 in costs. ( How can you say my dad was worth ?85?

It's just absolutely appalling. I would love the magistrates to look

me and my brothers in the face and tell us why they thought that

sentence was adequate for killing our dad. Since the incident, Kelly

often compares fines and costs for other offences. Magistrates imposed

a fine of ?100 along with a ?20 victim surcharge and costs of ?150

for dropping litter. Another guy didn't clean up after his dog and

was fined ?100 with a ?20 victim surcharge and costs of ?150. The

worst one, a guy who had to pay ?1,400 because he caused unnecessary

suffering to a squirrel. I don't agree with animal cruelty at all,

but for causing the suffering and death a squirrel you have to pay

?1400 and for causing the suffering and death of our dad, you pay ?85. I

don't understand the law at all. It makes no sense at all. Have we

developed an attitude problem when it comes to driving and what does

that mean for that all important standard of a careful and competent

driver? Getting stopped. He's right behind us now... The police are

carrying out a collision reduction operation on the busy M62. Texting.

They're using an unmarked HGV cab to get a good look at drivers' extra

crick lar activity. He's on his mobile phone, left hand, left ear.

It's the white van in lane one. Directions on her knee there, look.

He's reading it now. She's looking down at it now as she's driving

along. Some people might think these things aren't particularly

important. You try telling somebody's relatives that it's not

important when you're knocking on the door, telling them that their

son or daughter has died as a result of somebody making a phone call and

that's not an acceptable excuse to them. Using a mobile device. There

you go. Oh, yes. He had absolutely

everything going on there. Inspector Mark Hughes runs the major

collisions team. He's been to many fatal accidents to establish whether

they were due to dangerous or careless driving. You've got to

decide would the normal person think that is careless or dangerous. Death

by dangerous is a more serious charge, therefore the evident shall

requirements are significantly higher. You need to stop him. He's

chatting away like a good' un on his Often it's phone. Impossible to

establish precisely what a driver was doing at the wheel when they

crashed. In just a few hours on one stretch of motorway, the team pulled

19 people for distracted driving. It's a big problem. It must be going

on nationally all over the place. It needs addressing, whether it's

education, enforcement or a mixture of both. Enforcement is succeeding

in changing behaviour. Today seat belts are generally worn and alcohol

avoided. Road deaths have fallen year on year. More technical

advances have played a part in improving safety, another aspect of

vehicle innovation is proving more controversial. So this is a 1983

Mazda RX7. In its time it was a cutting-edge sports car. But to the

modern eye, the amount of knobs in this car are purely to operate the

car. It's very basic. There's very little in here to distract you.

Fast forward 31 years, and look how things have changed: This is the

latest Mazda 3 and it is what we have come to expect from a modern

car. It has far more knobs and switches and even what the industry

describe as an infotainment system, which allows you to access your sat

nav, voice-activated controls, and even a social media platform access,

like Facebook and Twitter. This is about a whole lots more than just

getting from a to B. Like many cars, the ASDA comes with a warning about

distracting -- the Mazda comes with a warning about being distracted

while driving. The Facebook app reads out status updates and allows

the driver to interact. Drivers can listen to emails and send

voice-activated texts. These are just a few examples of features

available across the market. There is no doubt that infotainment and

technology is becoming a big selling point. Consumers want the

technology. We see our car like our office or work space. We want the

same functionality that we have in those places in our car. The Ford

Fiesta. Never has more advanced engineering gone into a small car.

30 years ago, it was performance and safety that got everybody excited.

The airbag system reacts within 30 ms. Today it is infotainment that

manufacturers are keen to tell us about. Connectivity to the world.

Technology companies and manufacturers have created an

infotainment industry valued at $30 billion. Forgive him. He is an

idiot. In the US, these developments have set manufacturers and the

courts on a collision course. Senator Rockefeller recently chaired

a meeting for the industry. What is so important about having kids

driving along updating their Facebook networks? What does that

have to do with anything? You should know that I am very unhappy, if not

desperate, about death and close to death injuries. And the sake of

outdoing each other and making more money. So should we be concerned?

Professor Paul Atchley has been studying cognitive distraction in

drivers for 20 years. Cognitive distraction essentially means that

one cognitive process, for example talking, is interfering with another

one, such as looking at the road while driving. There is no

controversy whatsoever. Using a secondary device of some kind in

your car, like a cellphone, while driving, doing Twitter a hands-free

device, that causes mental workload and that workload reduces your

ability to deal with hazards and increases your likelihood of being

in a crash. We can all get distracted from time to time when we

are driving. Whether it is tuning the radio, fiddling with the sat nav

system, it may be that you are eating behind the wheel. With all

the new technology in cars, my question is where are we heading and

is it safe? Motor manufacturers argue that many of these

developments keep us safe by keeping our hands on the wheel. The problem

is there is plenty of research that suggests that hands-free is not

nearly as safe as people think. I have come to the University of Leeds

for a driving test with a difference. This state-of-the-art

simulator can be used to analyse driver behaviour in the finest

detail. Every twitch of the wheel and tap of the pedals is monitored,

and even my eye movement is under scrutiny. The test is simple. Drive

safely along a motorway following roadworks signs, and then exit

towards Wakefield. No problem. So now I am going to give this a go

with a hands-free kit. Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, how is my

driving? OK, we are now going to do the 20 questions to ask. Ask your

first question when you are ready. Is it a human being. No. This test

is designed to simulate the demands of a fairly intense conversation

like discussing work on the way to the office. Is it an animal? Yes. Is

it a large animal or a small animal? You can only ask me yes or

no questions. Is it as big as a dog? Yes. Does it live in... A

house. No. Does it meow? No. OK, I'm afraid we have to stop you there

because you have missed injunction that you were supposed to turn off.

-- the junction. All over onto the hard shoulder and we. Driving now.

-- pull over and we will stop driving now. I didn't pass the test.

It was difficult talking to somebody on the phone while I was trying to

drive, trying to keep my eye on the traffic. At times I must have been

driving without being aware of my surroundings, what was behind me and

what was happening. I really wasn't. At times I felt like I had a

bad case of tunnel vision. What does the data reveal? When we loaded you

up with that demanding cognitive task, we can see the tunnel vision

you are describing with the eye tracking data. Hypervigilance at the

front, losing that peripheral awareness that we would hope you

would have in a normal situation, which may have resulted in the fact

that you missed the junction you were supposed to exit the motorway

for in that condition. I did slow down a bit, probably because I felt

the need to concentrate but tunnel vision was not my only problem. What

we did see was nearly a 100% increase in tailgating on the phone.

For eight minutes you were within one second of the car in front. Even

though you had slowed down, you were in more hazardous situations because

of the demands of the cognitive task. I had actually taken the test

a third time without distraction but 1.5 times over the legal

drink-driving limit. Unlike hands-free, that is seen as

completely unacceptable. I drove faster when drunk at my lane

discipline was affected, but I did not suffer tunnel vision and I

tailgated much less than when on the hands-free. People call me up in the

car and they say, shall I call you back? No, I am on the hands-free, it

is safe. But not as safe as I thought it would be. That is the

point. It is not as safe as you thought it would be. We need more

awareness and we cannot keep on loading up drivers more and more and

then not expect it when we have difficult and challenging driving

conditions not to have an impact on their driving. I had no idea that

talking hands-free could impair my driving in similar ways to being

drunk and I am not alone. The AA carried out a survey of more than

18,000 drivers the Panorama of the people who chose to take part, a

court assumed that if something was in a car, it was safe to use. -- a

quarter. The trouble with understanding risk is that we are

not statisticians and we don't look at tables. We look at what other

people are doing, what our Government tells us is safe and what

people who sell us things tell us is safe. Cognitively there is no

difference between a hand-held and hands-free telephone conversation.

The AA survey revealed that four out of five believed deaths resulting

from hand-held telephone conversations should be charged as

dangerous. For hands-free conversations, that number fell to

one in five. That is important because what they're careful and

competent driver thinks provides the standard by which these cases are

tried. -- the careful and competent driver. But I am not sure that

drivers, including myself, I getting the right messages from the

Government and the industry about the risk. In the USA, Senator

Rockefeller has warned the industry that he will push for legislation to

put the brakes on infotainment. If we can't get something worked out,

we will have to do it here and you will lobby hard against it and you

may prevail. You may think what you are doing is creating a social good.

If any of you think you are creating a social good for the betterment of

the American people and the environment in which they with, I

would like to have you explain that to me right now. -- in which they

live. It is the sort of question that if you don't ask it, it is

barrister -- embarrassing for you. I have visited the association of

manufacturers and traders to find out more. Isn't it just about profit

and not safety to put these things and cars? I think the question is

misplaced. The level of developments and advancements around vehicles

shows that the industry takes this very seriously. But social media in

cars, is that responsible? The law is very clear on this. Your focus

should always to be to give due care and attention to the road and the

motorist must do that. If they want to use social media devices, they

must all over and park and abide by the law. What is the point of

putting these devices in cars if they are not supposed to be used by

drivers while driving? Drivers want to have that technology.

Increasingly the technology is on the contrary, to make sure your

focus is on the road, and the best advantage of that is satellite

navigation. But sat navs help drivers and social media platforms

don't. Why is it necessary to have them in your car? People want to

have that kind of access. What we are trying to do is to allow them to

have access but not so that it interferes when they are driving.

According to the industry, if people want it, and it is safe, then we

should give it to them. Fair enough but who says what is safe? In this

country we only legislate against televisions and hand-held phones in

cars. What in vehicles is a voluntary set of design guidelines.

-- what governs infotainment in vehicles. But the Government barely

mentions cognitive distraction so why is it overlooked? What do you

make of the dis- science that says there is a concern? The science is

clearly mixed. I think all of the industry undertakes a lot of

research to make sure that new technologies can be harnessed to

support the driver. According to critics, the industry is picking and

choosing in science and turning a blind eye to a body of evidence on

cognitive distraction. What has been dismaying to me personally is that

what we see are people really paying attention to the data that they

think are most beneficial to them. If your goal is to put as much

technology in a vehicle as possible, because frankly people

want it and they want to be in communication with folks around

them, it is a good story to believe there is no such thing as cognitive

distraction. After everything I have seen, it is hard to escape the

thought that as consumers we are demanding vehicles with more

infotainment. In doing so, are we taking driving seriously enough? Are

we eroding that all-important standard of the careful and

competent driver?