Four dead and only 150 hours community service

Emily Watt in the Dominion Post reports on the coroner’s report into the car crash which killed Peter Dengate Thrush’s wife, brother and father (and father’s friend). I blogged on this at the time.

The intersection between Wairere Road and SH2 is a notorious one, and if you pull out into it you do need to do so quickly as it hard to see in times cars which have pulled out. So the driver was only charged with drink driving, not drink driving causing death and Charles Goodson got only 150 hours community work.

However the coroner’s report found:

• His blood alcohol level was a massive three times the adult legal limit
• He was driving at 118 km/hr to 128 km/hr
• He failed to brake or take any evasive action
• It was heavily raining with poor visibility

Now if you are not pissed, you would not be speeding when it is heavily raining with poor visibility. Sure SH2 can be relatively safe at 120 km/hr when it is daylight and sunny but most of us would never ever drive at those speeds in such poor conditions.

The Police are refusing to lay additional charges, despite the additional evidence found by the Coroner, because they say their decisions were made on the best evidence available at the time. Umm, well isn’t the whole point of new evidence being you reconsider previous decisions based on old evidence???