Sentences for 100mph-plus drivers ‘must be stiffer

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A road safety activist has said recent sentences handed down to motorists who were going over 100mph were "totally inappropriate". Davy Jackson, a former firefighter who has cut people out of car wrecks, made the comments in relation to two cases last week, both of which saw short driving bans handed out. Last Thursday, David John Fisher (22 and of Rafferty's Hill near Hillsborough in Co Down) was convicted after being caught going 106mph on the Crankill Road dual-carriageway near Ballymena, where the limit is 70mph.

District judge Nigel Broderick, sitting in Ballymena Magistrates' Court, banned the defendant for a month and fined him GBP200.

A national speed limit sign near the Newry border

One day earlier, in the same courthouse before the same judge, Martin Carville, 29, of Siulnamona Court in Belfast, was banned from driving for one month and fined GBP150 for doing 102mph on the M2 motorway. The judge commented: "Why am I constantly seeing drivers driving at excess of 100mph? There is hardly a day goes by that I haven't got these cases in front of me."

Mr Jackson, chairman of the charity Road Safe NI, said he is "sorely disappointed", saying: "The sentences are totally inappropriate. "See the like of the 22-year-old? The problem with boys is the part of your brain that makes decisions about risk is in the frontal lobe, and that part of the brain in boys doesn't develop until they're 25.

It devlops much quicker in girls. "So they don't see risk the same as the rest of us; that's the risk age - up to 25. "It's absolutely no excuse.

It's the old 'it will never happen to me' attitude. Collisions happen to other people, they think. And when it comes to their door, it's not only them: it's their family, friends, colleagues that suffer if something does go badly wrong.

"[The sentences are] not really a punishment really. It's not enough to discourage other people from doing the same. "Plus there's not enough police on the roads at the moment.

That's not the police's fault, their budget is cut. People know there's not the same amount of police on the roads, and that's why they think they're able to do these speeds. "Until the judges take a stiffer stance, these young boys don't see a deterrent at all."

The Lady Chief Justice's Office, representing the judiciary, said: "It is not appropriate for the Lady Chief Justice (outside her role as an appellate judge when a particular sentencing disposal is appealed before her or referred to the Court of Appeal on which she sits) to comment or express any opinion on a particular sentence." It added that "in relation to sentencing in general, the sentence imposed will depend on the specific circumstances in each case and a wide range of different factors will be considered". This will include things like case law, sentencing guidelines, guilty pleas, prior convictions, and other "aggravating or mitigating factors".

Other recent 100mph-plus convictions to have been reported recently include one last Friday in Dungannon Magistrates' Court before District Judge Peter Magill. Tadeusz Moron (55 and from Lisnagowan Road in Dungannon) was caught at 100mph in a 60mph zone, and got a GBP650 fine and five penalty points. In late July in Ballymena courthouse, judge Broderick presided over the case of Andrew Robert Steele (30, of Bryan Street in Larne) after he was clocked at 132mph on the new A8 dual carriageway in east Antrim.

Steele had previously been caught speeding at 100mph. His sentence for the 132mph incident was a one-year driving ban and a GBP400 fine. A week later judge Broderick oversaw another case: that of Mark McMahon (46, of Glebe Manor, Newtownabbey) who was caught going 139mph on a motorbike on the A8.

He got a three month ban and GBP300 fine.

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