What Are The Legal Implications For Careless Driving?

BCL's Daniel Jackson discusses the law regarding careless driving and the recent Court of Appeal judgment in Jones v Crown Prosecution Service & Anor [2019] EWHC 2826 (Admin).

The definition of careless, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is 'not taking or showing enough care and attention'. The Collins Dictionary adds a little more to the definition, which helps us to appreciate how this might be applied in the context of driving and ultimately road traffic collisions: 'If you are careless, you do not pay enough attention to what you are doing, and so you make mistakes, or cause harm or damage.' It is, therefore, no real surprise that s.3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 ('RTA 1988') refers to the offence of careless driving as when a person drives 'without due care and attention'.

The legal test for careless driving is whether the way the person drives 'falls below what would be expected of a competent and careful driver' (s.3ZA RTA 1988). You might be thinking that this sounds like an 'objective' test, well, it is, because regard shall be had not only to the circumstances of which the driver could have been expected to be aware (objective) but also to any circumstances shown to have been within his knowledge. The surrounding 'circumstances' are all important. As well as competent and careful, you will have heard words such as reasonable and prudent, when describing the driver possessing the requisite standard of competence.

So, are we more concerned with the condition of the driver or the manner of driving, or both? In Jones v Crown Prosecution Service & Anor [2019] EWHC 2826 (Admin), one of the two case stated questions was: Can an offence of careless driving be established based upon the physical condition of a person when driving? The case concerned the appellant who was originally convicted of a number of driving offences, including dangerous driving, before the magistrates' court, and then committed to the crown court for sentence. The appellant appealed against conviction and was acquitted of dangerous driving, but convicted of careless driving, as well as the other original driving offences.

In relation to the offence of careless driving, according to the case stated, the crown court found that it 'could not be sure that the accident was caused solely as a result of the driving of the defendant'. Reference was made to the defendant's evidence that he was attacked (supported by CCTV) outside the venue of the wake following a...