THE Crown Prosecution Service is considering proposals to bring more serious charges against dangerous drivers.

The worst offenders, who cause deaths on the roads, could be charged with manslaughter. And the idiots who tailgate and go round corners while on hand-held mobile telephones could be charged with dangerous driving, instead of the lesser offence of careless driving.

All of this, of course, makes obvious sense to most of us, but the criminal justice system has only just reached the consultation stage.

Who knows how long it will be before appropriate action is taken?

Here in the North-East, there have been a string of examples of killer drivers dodging true justice.

The most recent, and one of the most appalling, was the case of 16-year-old Ashley Lindo who raced a stolen car across a Teesside park and killed eight-year-old Daniel Curtin.

Lindo's sentence? Three years behind bars for dangerous driving when it should have been manslaughter.

A car in the wrong hands is every bit as lethal as a gun and it is high time our justice system caught up with the public mood about the need to deal with dangerous drivers in a way which fits the seriousness of their crime.

If a charge of manslaughter is introduced for killing people on the roads, it carries a maximum life sentence.

And there lies another joke because, as we all know, we live in an age when a life sentence is frequently meaningless.