Problems of Criminal Liability for Negligent Acts: A Case Study on Negligent Driving Causing Death

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the legal issues on the offense of reckless driving in Thailand. This research is a comparative legal study between Thailand, Singapore, and the Commonwealth of Australia, South Australia under the offense of reckless driving in order to propose the effective guidelines of legal amendments for the offense of reckless driving in Thailand.

The results of this study presented that there is no penalty for reckless driving or driving in a manner that is seen as disregarding the safety of the life or body of others under Thailand's Land Traffic Act B.E. 2522 (1979). However, this will be considered as negligence which shall be subject to liability under the Thai Criminal Code and will lead to three legal issues: 1. the determination of the offense of reckless driving that is inconsistent with the seriousness of the offense, 2. an increased penalty cannot be imposed for a repeated offense in the case of reckless driving, 3. the penalty for a repeated offense of reckless driving cannot be aggregated with the suspended sentence during the probationary period. As the result, this article presented legal approaches to amend the Land Traffic Act B.E. 2522 (1979) by amending the penalties for the offense of reckless driving and the offense of driving a vehicle without regarding for the safety of others, and the authority for a judge to have a consideration to add the suspended punishment in the former case to the punishment in the latter case where the offender commits an offense of reckless driving and driving without regard for the safety of others during the suspension period.