I see the discussion goes on. Murder and mugging are very different to the original examples, because we can show intent. So it is easy to ignore what actually happened and sentence on what was intended by the actions.
Nodding off at the wheel or driving recklessly around a blind bend are different because there is no intent. It is an accident.
As has been said the argument is rational and simple. We shouldn't sentence on pure luck of the consequences. It is so simple that you might convince people and convince politicians to change it. Here is what I suggest will happen.
We will work out the probabilities. We will probably get this wrong. People are rubbish at understanding probabilities. Many people can't understand the simple mathematical probability of to**ing a coin. Probabilities on issues of life and death are usually heavily biased emotionally toward safety. People complain the world's gone mad because rules, regulations etc. are often based on the possibility of injury or death and not on the probability. Strangely, peoples irrationality causes the irrational rules that they then complain about.
We are setting a punishment on each case based on, in very simple terms, how stupid the person was. And the probabilities of the consequences.
Two people nod off and are taken to court. The first one ran onto the hard shoulder and was spotted by the police and the second ended on a train line and killed forty people. All the circumstances of why they nodded off are the same and they both get 12 month ban and �500 fine.
Lots of people, including those who agreed with your idea, are up in arms. Gone are the rational notion of probability, replaced by the emotion of forty dead people and the man responsible walking free with a ban and a fine.
Add the many other deaths caused by minor and sometimes unavoidable accidents and you have a government plastered all over the news every day because they allow reckless incompetent idiots to kill innocent people and walk away scot free.
The only solution is to leave it as it is and except some people will get unlucky based on the actual probabilities, or make the sentence fit the worse case scenario. ie. if it's possible the accident could cause death, sentence as if it has.
Many people will think that last idea is a good one. If you do, you are an idiot.
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