I refer to the article regarding the quashing of the dangerous driving conviction (Call this justice?, The Press, May 8). It would be wrong to comment directly upon this or any case without knowledge of the facts; I therefore write in more general terms.

Having spent 22 years as a police crash investigator and the last eight as a private collision investigator, I believe I can speak with some knowledge. Fatal road crashes are always tragic and there are no winners, only losers, in such events. Such cases always attract considerable emotion, particularly for the relatives of the deceased.

Understandably, in their eyes there is no punishment suitable and there never will be.

Basically, there are two possible charges in such tragic crashes: causing death by dangerous driving and now the newly introduced causing death by careless driving. There is, however, a natural tendency to become engrossed in the emotional side of these events and to forget the legal side.

Courts do not work on emotion. Such charges arise in the main from totally unintentional acts (commonly called accidents) and it is the standard of driving which is under consideration by the court.

In the very simplest of terms, if your driving falls below the standard then it is careless driving. If, however, it falls far below that standard then it is dangerous driving.

That standard remains the same in any collision, with or without a death being involved. Driving is not dangerous simply because of the death of a person involved.

While we can all understand the difficulty in accepting that concept when it is your relative who has been killed, it does not alter the manner in which such events have to be viewed by the courts and others involved. We must not lose sight of the fact there are two sides to the coin and both have the right to justice.

M J Natt, Orchard Close, York.