Double standards of justice for killer drivers

From: Allan Ramsay,Radcliffe Moor Road, Radcliffe.

LEE Rigby’s killers getting whole-life and 45 year jail terms shows British justice at its best: his family are “satisfied”; the “right prison term” has been given and “justice has been done” (Yorkshire Post, February 27).

It leaves no doubt that the most dangerous people in society have no place in it other than “behind bars”. Pity the same isn’t seen in dangerous driving. With even the worst killer-drivers free after six years – even for multiple killings and child killings – doesn’t justice for Lee Rigby show road traffic law to be the “joke” that many bereaved families say it is?

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As to whether some people should “rot in prison”, shouldn’t some people never be allowed to drive? Why re-tests? Do we give shotguns back to armed robbers? In being civilised we abolished the death penalty, yet close to 2,000 people will lose their lives on UK roads over the next 12 months. How many will be lost to extremists?

Speed is exciting, and addictive. Ask Jeremy Clarkson. Alcohol and drugs are addictive. Ask the NHS. Mobile phones are too. Ask any psychologist. All are lifestyle choices; not accidents.

No matter how brutal a murder, it isn’t 10 times worse than losing loved ones – perhaps teenage daughters – in a horrendous drug or speed-related crash. Ask bereaved parents.

If Lee Rigby’s killers “are a betrayal of Islam and of the peaceful Muslim communities who give so much to our country”, then aren’t killer drivers a betrayal of everyone who has and will give their lives to make the world a safer place?

When we have brutal road rage attacks being carried out on stroke victims on mobility scooters, need any more be said?