A nasty story in the BBC News. Giles Furnival is an epileptic who had not informed the DVLA of his illness. He was suffering several fits a month, yet somehow decided that suddenly being inside a car which didn’t have a driver (when a fit came) and was going at anything up to 70mph (legally) wasn’t a risk to himself or anyone else.
In September last year, he was travelling “at speed” on the M25 when he had an epileptic fit. It appears he veered on to the hard shoulder, then veered back and hit the car being driven by a male and his girlfriend. The woman, Laura Williams, died.
Furnival was jailed for 3½ years, banned from driving for five, and instructed to take an extended test (fortunately, the law on epilepsy effectively means he won’t be able to drive for much longer if he keeps having fits).
But he should have been put away for a lot longer and banned for life. Laura Williams won’t get a second chance, but this evil specimen has.
The law associated with epilepsy is rather complicated in many respects. However, it is extremely simple in one main area: if you are having frequent fits then you are not fit to drive and cannot do so. You need to have gone 12 months without a seizure before you can even be considered fit to think about driving again.