Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
Yes, I've always felt dubious about the principle of scaling punishment on the basis of its consequences. It's always seemed to punish bad luck to an unfair degree. I remember that chap who fell asleep at the wheel a few years ago and somehow managed to cause the Selby train crash. He got five years. If he'd given into sleep a few minutes earlier, there's every chance he might just have veered onto the hard shoulder and gone up the bank. Result? A few points on his licence, maybe. The disparity between those punishments for essentially the same offence has always seemed arbitrary and unfair to me.
So do you think the chap should have got nothing more than a few points on his license, or that people who crash onto the hard shoulder but kill no-one should be treated as harshly as if they'd caused a train crash?

That's where it gets tricky, huh?