Vehicular homicide

Vehicular homicide is a crime that involves the death of a person other than the driver as a result of either criminally negligent or murderous operation of a motor vehicle.

In cases of criminal negligence, the defendant is commonly charged with unintentional vehicular manslaughter.

Vehicular homicide is similar to the offense, in some countries, of "dangerous driving causing death."

The victim may be either a person not in the car with the offending motorist (such as a pedestrian, cyclist, or another motorist), or a passenger in the vehicle with the offender.

The Criminal Code does not have a specific offence for vehicular homicide, but has a series of provisions covering driving offences causing death, among them:

The maximum penalty for dangerous driving causing death, absent any of the remaining 5 elements mentioned above, is 14 years' imprisonment. The maximum penalty is otherwise life imprisonment. Anyone sentenced to life imprisonment for a Criminal Code driving offence is eligible to apply for parole after serving 7 years, but there is no guarantee of parole.

In the United Kingdom, there is no offense of "vehicular homicide". Where a vehicle has been used as a weapon as part of a deliberate assault; and the intention was to kill or cause serious injury; and that assault resulted in the death of the victim then the driver may be charged with murder contrary to the Common Law.

Where death is the result of driving that falls short of a deliberate assault, the Road Traffic Act 1988 (RTA 88) governs the disposal of the case. The offenses created by this act relating to road deaths are as follows ...

The RTA 88 introduced the simple concept of dangerousness by removing the offence of "reckless driving" as the concept of recklessness in UK law requires a mens rea. This had been difficult to prove in court. Legal reformists have pressed for the adoption of a categorization more akin to that of the United States. C. M. V. Clarkson, an advocate of a vehicular homicide offense, opines that while people's perceptions are that death resulting from a motor vehicle is in a different "family" to other killings, "in terms of fault there can be little distinction between those who kill through the dangerous operation of their cars and those who kill with machines, trains, etc."

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