Grieving families to deliver dangerous driving sentencing reform petitions to Theresa May

Two families involved in the road safety charity Brake’s Roads to Justice campaign will visit 10 Downing Street hand over Change.org petitions calling for tougher criminal driving laws. Both petitions have reached 100,000 signatures.

Richard and Ceinwen Briddon’s daughter Miriam Briddon, a 21-year-old university student, was killed instantly when a drunk driver veered onto her side of the road. The driver was charged with causing death by careless driving while under the influence of alcohol. He was jailed for five years, and will serve just two and a half years in prison.

Richard and Ceinwen Briddon said: “We named the petition ‘A Moment for Miriam’ as we were asking people to take a moment of their time to read about Miriam and to sign our petition. The amount of signatures we received in just two months was phenomenal. We are truly amazed at how quickly we crossed the 100,000 mark and we are very grateful to everyone that has signed and shared our campaign.

“We will never have justice for Miriam. The present sentencing guidelines and the law are an insult to her life and a disgrace to us left behind to pick up the pieces. When an innocent life is taken, the punishment should reflect the seriousness of the crime. 

The other petition was created by the family of Robert Allaway, who was killed by a drink-driver while riding his motorbike in the Yorkshire Dales. The driver was two and a half times over the legal blood-alcohol limit and on the wrong side of the road when he hit Robert. He was jailed for four years and six months, so will be out of prison and free to continue living his life in just two and a half years. 

His widow, Lorraine,  said: “I am hoping to get a debate going regarding sentences for criminal drivers who kill when I hand over my petition on Thursday. I vowed on the day my husband’s killer was sentenced that I would campaign to get the law changed regarding sentencing of drivers who kill vulnerable road users and I will continue to campaign until the sentencing for these drivers has been changed.”

Brake is concerned that drivers who kill or maim all too often receive lenient sentences. It is calling on the government to redefine criminal driving: drivers who pose a serious threat must face serious charges and serious penalties. We also need solid investment in road-traffic policing, to crack down on dangerous drivers and enforce the law. 

Support for road-crash victims is a grossly under-funded area, the charity added. When someone dies in a crash, their mum, dad, wife, husband, partner, brother, sister, daughter or son are often left to struggle through their loss alone. We need the government to invest in specialist support, offering prompt and comprehensive help to families when the worst has happened.

The Roads to Justice campaign calls for tougher charges and penalties that reflect the suffering caused; investment in road-traffic policing. It also seeks government-funded support for road crash victims whose loved ones have been violently killed or have suffered life-changing injuries. 

A Brake survey conducted in July 2016 found that 91% of people questioned agreed that drivers on drink or drugs who kill should be charged with manslaughter, which carries a possible life sentence. At present almost half of drivers convicted of killing are not jailed at all. The average prison sentence for a driver who has killed someone is less than four years.

Gary Rae, director of communications and campaigns for Brake, said: “As we have witnessed far too often, there are too many families, like the Allaways and the Briddons, who suffer the loss of a loved one in devastating circumstances, and then witness our judicial system turning their back on them. The petition handover shows that the public are behind us, with both petitions gaining a huge amount of support. The Prime Minister has already told us we will be getting a review into criminal driving this year. Her government must now give us a definite timetable for action to avoid any more families suffering terrible injustices.”