Prison driving ban shake-up urged

Kelly Woodward was in a car driven by a man over the drink-drive limit

A campaign backed by the Conservatives is calling for driving bans given to jailed motorists to begin after release instead of while they serve their term.

The campaign was started by Jan Woodward, from Billingham near Stockton-on-Tees, whose daughter Kelly was killed by a drink-driver in 2005.

She is backed by shadow roads minister Robert Goodwill, while road safety charity Brake is calling for a review.

The AA said courts took into account the sentence when giving driving bans.

Mr Goodwill said the current law was unclear because it allowed people to partially use up their driving ban while they were in jail and could not drive anyway.

He said: ""It would seem to make more sense logically that the ban should be a fixed period that commences only when the prison sentence has been served

"I think it would actually make it it much more understandable for the victims and their families if they understood how long that ban would be.

"At the moment nobody really has an idea how long the actual ban will be because the length of time a person serves in prison varies quite a lot and it can often be less than half the sentence given out."

Drink-driver

The AA said there was no need for bans to start automatically on release from prison.

A spokesman said: "When you're sentencing someone for a driving offence, you're sentencing someone to a prison sentence and a driving ban at the same time.

"You know they're going to prison, you know for how long, and you can impose the ban to reflect the length of the prison sentence as well as the length of the ban."

The driver of the car Kelly Woodward was travelling in was jailed for four years after admitting being twice over the drink-drive limit.

Mrs Woodward said: "We found out later that he was twice over the legal limit but at a party you don't watch what other people drink.

"She would never have got into the car if she thought he was that far gone. He was speeding, clipped the kerb, the car swerved and Kelly took the brunt of it on a tree."