DRIVING, like most human activities, is potentially dangerous. But at what point should the criminal law intervene?

All drivers have momentary lapses and if that is a crime then we are all criminals. As for falling asleep at the wheel, most drivers, including myself, would admit to a dozing experience.

My mother fell asleep at the wheel once. I was six and suffered a cut lip. We ended up in a hedge and not at the bottom of a railway embankment. If any of us had been killed in that accident, should my mother have been prosecuted for causing death by dangerous driving and face ten years in jail?

Are people to be punished for the consequences of what they do rather than for the act itself? Alcohol can be measured, but sleepiness?

The circumstances in the Gary Hart Selby rail tragedy case were wholly exceptional. It is illusory to think you can measure tiredness in the unexceptional case.

Sleepiness is not the only condition that affects driving skills. What about stress? The driver who has just stormed out of the house after a blazing row with their spouse? Are they to be stressalysed? Accidents usually happen as a result of human failings as much as wickedness. Where human failing is more evident than wickedness, the criminal law needs to be wary about the imposition of penalties designed to reflect the fortuitous consequences of an action rather than the objective guilt. Civil law can deal with the consequences by way of damages.

And if it be objected that damages are completely inadequate to compensate for serious injury or the death of loved ones, then so is the 'punishment' of a driver if his or her only 'crime' is to have erred. To err is human.

Tony Lawton,

The Old Rectory,

Skelton, York.

...THE outcome of the Selby Rail Crash trial shows how little this country has learned from the Titanic tragedy. A true assessment of risk looks to see a direct link between the originating incident and the subsequent outcome.

In the Titanic sinking no one was reported to have been killed in the collision with the iceberg but 1,500 died because the directors of the White Star Line had refused to provide sufficient lifeboats for all on board. So with the Selby crash: none have been reported as being killed in the initial contact with the vehicle and trailer but ten died when the train was deflected into the path of the oncoming goods train by a set of points.

The defendant should have been punished for the mere act of taking charge of a motor vehicle without being sufficiently rested. But to label him as being responsible for those deaths is a highly debatable point.

Had his vehicle ended on the line because he had suffered a sudden illness the result would still have been the same. Which begs the question; why did ten people die?

The answer is that the railway companies have done little to protect passengers if the worst comes to the worst. If a train is derailed at high speed the chances of it colliding with a train coming from the opposite direction are significantly high by virtue of the minimal separation between each one.

The only real hope is that an opposing train can be stopped in time. Sadly, at Great Heck, this was not to be. The outcome of the trial means there is little impetus on the part of Government and the railway companies to take the radical measures necessary to make our railways truly safe.

J C Potter,

Eastfield Avenue,

Haxby, York.

Updated: 10:43 Tuesday, December 18, 2001