Driver who killed racing cyclist gets 5 years in jail

At the time of the crash, Pearce was driving home from an airport having not slept since leaving Turkey the previous day.

Zak Carr was cycling to work along the A11 near Wymondham when the crash happened on 17th October 2005.
CTC Campaigns & Policy Manager, Roger Geffen, welcomed the prison sentence but said it wasn’t long enough, a fault the Government must fix:

“Although this sentence is reasonable within current sentencing guidelines, it is still only a fraction of the maximum sentence available – and the reason isn’t too hard to spot.

“Despite the new Road Safety Act 2006, the sentencing framework for bad driving offences is still riddled with inconsistencies. If the driver had done exactly the same thing but by chance Zak Carr had ‘merely’ been maimed rather than killed, then the maximum sentence the judge could have given him would have been just 2 years. So it is hardly surprising that judges never seem to go anywhere near the maximum of 14 years open to them in cases such as this where someone really is killed.

“The Government must sort out these anomalies if sentences for dangerous drivers are to reflect the gravity of threatening other road users’ lives.”