Study On The Crime Of Dangerous Driving

Crime of dangerous driving is a new kind of crime added in Amendment VIII to the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China. This is not only a clear evidence of government's determination to crack down on increasingly frequent dangerous driving behavior, but also a signal of exploration and attempt of transition of our criminal law theory from result oriented to action oriented. However, it is not without controversy of the conviction for dangerous driving behavior. To drunk driving, for example, some people argue against regulating of such behavior in criminal law on the grounds of "criminal law eliminates wine culture". Therefore, it's well worth exploring and studying of crime of dangerous driving.This paper firstly introduces the legislative overview of the crime of dangerous driving. As dangerous driving is a new kind of crime, it is favorable to the definition and more comprehensive analysis of the crime of dangerous driving through the comparison and reference of legislation modes in other countries and regions. In addition, in order to unscramble the legislative background of crime of dangerous driving, our legislative and judicial process of prevention and regulation of dangerous driving is sorted out, including the regulation means of dangerous driving since Criminal Law enacted in 1997, and relevant judicial interpretations until Amendment VIII the introduction to the crime of dangerous driving in our interpretation of the legislative background.Secondly, this paper expound and elaborate on the object, objective, the subject, subjective aspects of the crime of dangerous driving to analyse the constitutive elements of the crime. Public safety, identified as the object of the crime of dangerous driving, including not only the "safety of not a particular person or property", but also "smoothness and quiet of public life". Then the objective aspects of specific crimes, such as chasing driving and drunk driving are discussed. Furthermore, the author's own opinion of "viciousness" in the crime of dangerous driving that viciousness is behavioral attribute of chasing driving, rather than evaluation of the result which the behavior led to is put forward and emphasized. For the scope of application, the author suggests, viciousness is a constitutive element of all specific crimes of dangerous driving, not only the chasing driving. Also, the author's own views on specific circumstances of viciousness which needs clarity are put forward. On the subject aspect, the author believes that the subject of the crime of dangerous driving is general subject. On the subjective aspect, the crime of dangerous driving is acted intentionally, but the intention is confined to the actor's understanding of the behavior, irrespective of the understanding of the purpose and degree of the behavior.Specifically identified for the crime of dangerous driving, author describes the distinction between the general administrative violations and the criminal acts of dangerous driving. Then, the paper describes the differences and similarities among the crime of dangerous driving, traffic accident crime and the crime of endangering public security by other dangerous means. There may be competing with the relationship between the two crimes, there are significant differences in the subjective. Creation of dangerous driving in a crime does not mean that the original crime of endangering the public safety of dangerous driving conviction constitutes a new crime of dangerous driving. Under the circumstances of Joint Crimes, author discusses an intentional crime committed by two or more drivers jointly and the crime between non-drivers and drivers. A non-driver would be an accomplice which refers to a person who plays a secondary or auxiliary role in the joint crime.Focusing on crime and punishment, it is necessary that the crime of dangerous driving in the criminal law adapts to their specific settings and the penalty. Author believe that principal punishment of the crime of dangerous driving having the deficiencies. On the one hand ,the legal punishment of detention seems to be light ,on the other hand ,learning form the foreign legislative experience ,within the supplementary punishment, author suggest that the confiscation of criminal tools could be used as criminal penalty to apply. The criminal law should be the criteria to achieve social justice and respecting for individual liberty, they are both important between the drivers' freedom and the public safety. This is also a necessary requirement of the country toward the rule of law.