The defendant, aged 17, was driving a motor scooter, with his 14-year-old friend as a pillion passenger, at a speed between 37 and 44 mph along a road with a 20 mph speed limit. Neither the defendant nor his passenger were wearing crash helmets. The defendant looked over his left shoulder and backwards for a period while addressing remarks to two young men who were walking on the pavement. The defendant lost control of the motor scooter which struck the kerb and overturned. Both riders were propelled off the back. The defendant suffered relatively minor injuries but his passenger suffered fatal head and spinal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene. The defendant was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, contrary to section 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. A plea of guilty to causing death by careless driving was offered but was not acceptable to the prosecution. At trial the prosecution’s case was that the defendant was travelling at an excessive speed, that he looked over his shoulder and backwards, rather than in the direction of travel, long enough to cause the scooter to drift and hit the kerb, and that he drove the scooter with a young pillion passenger who was not wearing a helmet The defence objected to the prosecution’s reliance on the fact that the passenger was not wearing a helmet on the basis that that fact was irrelevant to the standard of driving and was prejudicial. The prosecution submitted in response that the failure to wear a helmet was relevant to whether the defendant’s driving was dangerous because it substantially increased the risk of injury. The judge ruled against the defendant and held that the fact that driving a motor scooter with a passenger who was not wearing a helmet was not an aspect of the way in which the scooter was physically manoeuvred by the defendant on the road was no bar to it being part of the standard of driving to be considered by the jury. The defendant was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving and appealed against that conviction on the ground that the judge’s ruling was wrong.
Held, appeal dismissed. The meaning of dangerous driving for the purposes of section 1 was to be found in section 2A(1) of the 1988 Act. The answer to the question raised before the judge was to be found therefore only by reference to the definition of dangerous driving in section 2A(1) and in the subsections to which express reference was made in that section. The test as to whether driving was dangerous was a purely objective one, and a finding of dangerous driving had to be based on the manner in which a defendant was driving. The standard to be expected of a careful and competent driver was inextricably linked to and dependent upon the circumstances in which the driving took place. One of the circumstances, of which the defendant was aware, was that his young pillion passenger was not wearing a helmet. It would not have been open to a jury to convict the defendant of dangerous driving on that ground alone; but such a scenario did not arise on the facts, nor did it form the basis of the judge’s decision to leave the case to the jury. Instead, that factor was, as the judge put it, properly to be considered as part and parcel of the “driving” for the purposes of section 1 of the 1988 Act. Analysing the matter by reference to the statutory requirements alone it was open to the jury to have regard to the fact that the pillion passenger was not wearing a helmet and to conclude that it would have been obvious to a careful and competent driver, who knew he had a young pillion passenger who was not wearing the required helmet to protect him, that driving in that way would be dangerous; and that his driving in that manner, regardless, fell far below the requisite standard. Accordingly, the judge’s conclusions were correct (paras 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23) .
Nutan Fatania (assigned by the Registrar of Criminal Appeals) for the defendant.
Hamish Common (instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service, Appeals Unit) for the Crown.