A 33-year-old Toronto man pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death of a woman and dangerous driving causing bodily harm to her husband in March.
In Germany, there is a new trend: people who cause deadly accidents because they drive with total blatant disregard for the life of others are now often charged with actual murder, in several cases successfully. In general, I think the very very least would be for someone like that to never be allowed to drive a vehicle ever again.
One of my friend’s brothers apparently killed someone while driving drunk, and they took away his license for life. It’s absolutely limited his success in life – he lives in the suburbs, and getting to work each day is 2h eachway* on public transit. It’s less than 30 minutes if his parents give him a lift. His job prospects are limited because of his police record. He still lives in his parent’s basement, and he’s almost 50.
The problem with removing their right to drive, is in North America thats basically removing their rights to travel even within their own city. I agree this person shouldn’t be driving on the road but as a society we would need to build other options to get around.
Toronto probably has enough transit and alternatives that lisences could reasonably be taken away but many people will still claim it as a direct infringement on their freedom. Since lisences are managed by the provincial government, most of cities in the province would need to have reliable alternatives to driving for police to effectively remove lisences.
I’m all for reducing car dependency, obviously, but not at all out of sympathy for jerks. There is no right to drive, it is a licensed activity.
On the other hand, obviously, I want non-car options to be ubiquitous and attractive so that statistically fewer jerks end up behind a wheel. But for those that would still drive like the grim reaper? Fuck em, they lose the privilege.
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