So if a jury were to be told: "the most likely cause was a temporary loss of awareness of the driving task during a period of low workload, which possibly caused him to microsleep."
You're saying that'd mean, "the most likely cause was temporarily being asleep during a period of low workload, which possibly caused him to microsleep." How do the two statement/interpretations work together?
The jury, if presented with the excuse of "the most likely cause was a
temporary loss of awareness of the driving task during a period of low workload, which
possibly caused him to microsleep."
...would find him guilty if this happened on a road or in a public place. Nailed on careless or dangerous driving. Why dance on the head of a pin about it? You think a microsleep is better than "asleep?"
the juror's logic, when presented with that statement, which is NOT a defence against a charge of death by careless or dangerous driving (!), against what they must consider, is as follows:
The offence is complete if:
Your standard of driving has fallen far below the standard that would be expected of a careful and competent driver AND that driving was the cause of the death of another person.
Yes - the tram was going abundantly too fast into the sharpest bend on the route, indisputable (it does NOT have to be intentional!)
Yes - the driving of the tram caused at least one person to die
Valid defences:
Mechanical failure - that the tram did not operate as expected (for example a brake fault or a stuck throttle) - conclusively NOT applicable here
Insanity which can include medical episodes like heart attacks - no evidence for it and has not been advances as a cause in six years
The driving was simply not careless or dangerous - definitely not arguable in this case, the tram was way over the speed limit and was obviously going to cause a severe accident.
This is not a crime of intent or wilful damage. You do not have to set out, or intend to drive in that manner. The offence is complete if merely two conditions are met. But...you have to do it on a road or a public place. Luckily for the driver, it happened on a segregated right of way and he fell between all the laws we have which would normally punish this standard of driving.
The report would seem to differentiate the two. The first part can't mean they were asleep and possibly cause him to microsleep, which you're saying is just asleep. And there's no "possibly" about it.
There is no real difference between being "asleep" and "microsleep", which is pure semantics, because in this case we must look at how the driver drove the tram, which, in the point after he allowed himself to become unaware, was at the very least careless and probably dangerous under the law, and then resulted in multiple deaths. The driver allowed his driving to deteriorate to the point where be became unaware of the hazard ahead - a hazard he had approached hundreds of times before. I am sure you are not so naive to think that if you do that in a car, you...don't go to court?
If you allow yourself to doze off, microsleep, daydream, get dazzled by the white lines on the road, turn around to sort out crying kids, bend down to pick up a coffee you spilled...and crash your car as a result...you go to court, and will be convicted. This is not hard to understand. The driver in our case of the tram would have absolutely no defence if he was up on a charge.
Call it what you like, it doesn't change the premise of the argument, which is that the driver has no defence if this happens somewhere a careless or dangerous driving charge would apply.
They should have just said asleep really then if it's all the same, even if a microsleep can be triggered in the absence of fatigue, it's just random tough luck, straight to jail... Though seemingly he was awake at least 8 seconds prior to the crash, given that he made a number of alterations on the throttle/brake control between that point and the crash, but the situational awareness and circumstances leading to that also irrelevant apparently, straight to jail...
This is blissfully naive to think you can microsleep and not be criminally liable. You are inviting people to believe that the driver was the victim of something so sudden and severe he was unable to do anything about it; a hapless victim of consequence whom the justice system should just shrug at. Effectively, this is the insanity defence, which holds no water whatsoever as we have already seen.
I've only gone by the findings of the report. I haven't appreciated that the details are just irrelevant fluff when dishing out jail sentences.
If you "temporarily lose awareness" and crash your car you are....still liable for prosecution under careless or dangerous driving. This is obvious, no?
Try looking up some death by dangerous driving cases where people fell asleep, or were even distracted. What you're arguing is
not a defence!
The CPS have a standard test that they apply to all prosecutions. Why exactly should this test not have been applied in the case of this driver? Had such an attitude been taken an application for a judicial review of the decision to prosecute would have been highly likely.
I don't think there is any reasonable prospect for a manslaughter conviction. As the CPS explain in their press release, the test for this is pretty high.
Much as I have been banging on in this thread about the driver and his responsibility for the accident, I don't think this is a manslaughter case and that would be a very unsatisfactory outcome.