Around five people are killed on our roads daily with devastated families often angered that those responsible avoid jail or face minor custodial sentences of three to five years or less.

The Drive For Justice campaign launched by Johnston Press papers from across the country aims to give anguished families who have lost loved ones to reckless and criminal driving a voice to lobby for fairer sentencing.

Our campaign calls on the Government to:

• Re-work sentencing guidelines and provide specialist training for judges so they can use the full powers that are available to them when deciding sentences for offenders
• Give tougher sentences for the worst offenders
• Have all culpable deaths treated as manslaughter /culpable homicide
• Have more - and longer - driving bans handed out to those who kill or seriously injure on the roads, or whose driving risks injury and death
• Examine how people are often prosecuted for the lesser charge of death by 'careless' driving rather than death by 'dangerous' driving. Families often feel the lesser 'careless' charge undermines the severity of the offence when someone is killed or seriously injured.
• Close the loopholes that exist as with hit-and-runs; failure to stop carries a maximum of six months jail while drink driving penalties are tougher. So at present a driver who has been drinking can get a lesser sentence if they flee the scene of a collision.
• Have even tougher sentences for those who offend while drink or drug driving, using excessive speed, are disqualified /unlicensed, or who are using their mobile phones.