New charges will be created in Guernsey’s legal system for things like ‘causing serious injury by driving dangerously’ and ‘drug-driving’.
A number of ‘Road Traffic’ ordinances, dating back to the 1980s, have been updated to meet modern requirements and are expected to be approved by the States in March.
The three different ordinances being updated and introduced are the ‘ Road Traffic (Drink Driving) (Guernsey) Law, 1989 (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025’, the ‘Road Traffic (Guernsey) (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025’, and the ‘Road Traffic (Causing Death or Serious Injury by Driving) (Guernsey) Law, 2025’.
The first will change the wording of the law around drink driving offences to clarify the meaning of driving without due care and attention, and driving without reasonable
consideration for others. It will also introduce specified legal limits for driving when having taken controlled drugs and it creates an offence of driving whilst over the prescribed limit for those drugs.
The new ‘Road Traffic (Guernsey) (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025’, will see a more detailed explanation of what constitutes driving dangerously and also clarifies the meaning of driving without due care and attention, and driving without reasonable consideration for others.
Under this new law, ‘dangerous’ will refer to the “danger either of injury to any person or of serious damage to property” caused by the individuals driving.
This new law will cover horse riders – or people riding other animals – as well as motor vehicles.
The ‘Road Traffic (Causing Death or Serious Injury by Driving) (Guernsey) Law, 2025’ will separate out offences under the prior law by creating four offences.
These will be ‘causing death by driving dangerously’, ‘causing death by driving without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for others’, ‘causing serious injury by driving dangerously’, and ‘causing serious injury by driving without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for others’.
The changes to this law could mean that if there is not enough evidence to prove a person caused ‘death by driving dangerously’, they could be charged with the new lesser offence of ‘causing death by driving without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for others’ instead.
Similarly, if a person is charged with ‘causing serious injury by driving dangerously’, and this cannot be proved, then they could face the new lesser charge of ‘causing serious injury by driving without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for others’.
