Driving While Disqualified or Suspended under s 30 of the Road Safety Act 1986 (Vic): Abolition of the Mandatory Sentencing Provision?

Abstract

In an earlier article in 2001, Edney and Bagaric argued that the mandatory sentencing of persons to imprisonment pursuant to s 30 of the Road Safety Act 1986 (Vic) for second or subsequent offences of Driving While Disqualified or Suspended cannot be justified and that reform is required. Since then the topic of mandatory sentencing for Driving While Disqualified or Suspended has assumed even greater importance having regard to (a) an increase in the number of administrative ways a person can now have their licence cancelled or disqualified; (b) the availability of recent empirical data demonstrating the number of persons sentenced to imprisonment for this offence; (c) the results of a major review of Victorian sentencing law and (d) an increase in the different ways a sentence of imprisonment can in fact (and in law) be served. In view of these developments, this article re-examines the use of mandatory sentencing for Driving While Disqualified or Suspended and argues that the arguments put forward by Edney and Bagaric are even more compelling five years down the track.