Grant Bell was driving along with some friends when they saw a car coming

          towards them on the other side of the road. What they did not see until too late were

          two other cars racing alongside it - with no lights and on the wrong side. One

          crashed into him and he was killed on spot. The driver of that car fled the scene.

5         Normally the penalty for such a commission is 204 hours' community service and a

           five-year driving ban.

                    In many hundreds of cases where death results from irresponsible behavior at

           the wheel of a car, the blame is much less severe than killing with any other weapon -

           gun, knife, or even bare hands - in which case the killer would have been charged

10        with and convicted of murder or manslaughter. And the maximum  penalty is life

           imprisonment. When the weapon is a car, however, these horrible acts of violence

           go virtually unpunished.

                    Because recklessness is diffecult to prove in court, many cases of causing

           death by reckless driving are charged simply as "careless driving," for which the

15        maximum fine £1,000. Even on those increasingly rare occasions when the corrcet

           charge is brought, sentences are frequently derisory. Of the 111 drivers sentenced

           to prison in England last year for causing death or bodily harm by reckless driving,

           more than half recieved sentences of less than a year. Often the Only penalty is a 

           normal fine - rarely more than £450 - and a driving ban.

The writer states that           .