I worry about how laws like this will be enforced in practice. They say they couldn't get convictions unless drivers were doing things like driving drunk or engaging in a street race. What other *driving* violations besides those would be worthy of a three year prison term (even if they result in an accident that kills someone)? I can't think of any -- and if there are one or two, then legislate those specific circumstances. I have a feeling that with a law like this one day a gung-ho prospector and the right (i.e. wrong) jury will send someone to jail for running a stop sign or something.

Deaths on the road are tragic, but I don't think people need to be going to jail for accidents. If they do it on purpose, of course they should go to jail. If they're driving drunk and kill someone, alright. But this law goes too far.

We have 1% of our population in prison in this country. In most western nations, the rate is about 0.4%. Do we really have 250% as many criminals worthy of jail time as other countries? I kind of wonder about that. Maybe there is something in our national psyche that we feel we have to lock up a lot of people, or there's a bit of a prison-industrial complex where privatization schemes for prisons and just regular ole prison construction companies lobby for more and more prison to be built and for the tougher laws that'll create the need for them. I don't know. But it does seem like we're a little too tough on some types of crime.

By the way, why is O'Malley, a Democrat, getting tougher on crime? With all his regressive tax hikes on the poor and big brother cameras and such, you wonder what it is about this guy that qualifies him as a Democrat. He governs like a Republican.

One can only hope that a Judge and jury will assign the appropriate punishment, if we can't trust them who can we trust?.

This law does NOT require jail time, it is only an option.

Where might jail time be applicable? Someone with a repeated history of unsafe driving (with serious injury or death) along with, oh lets say doing 50mph in a school zone resulting in the death of several kids or should that just be a speeding ticket?

I will also note there could be value in assigning probation for 3 years for offence.

This is merely a tool for the courts and one can hope that jail time will be reserved for the most grieves cases and those who show a pattern of a disregard for life.

@Barry: Some school zones are on roads that are 50 MPH normally. All it takes is missing seeing one sign, and maybe you're the person blowing through that school zone, entirely unintentionally. If you are unlucky and a child runs across the street there and a tragedy happens, that's something you'll have to live with the rest of your life, and it's horrific, but does it really warrant jail time? Is there anyone out there who's never missed even one speed limit sign in all their years of driving? Not once?

I don't like the idea of laws where people who intend to follow the law can accidentally wind up criminals, and that's what this strikes me as. People want to strike back and assign blame and punish people when tragedies strike, but sometimes a tragedy, as bad as it may be, isn't something that someone should go to jail for. The end result being bad doesn't always warrant jailing the perpetrator.

It doesn't seem like a stretch that someday a wayward jury (and some juries do make the wrong calls -- they are just people, not perfect -- and sometimes are poorly instructed to boot) will send someone to jail for hitting a pedestrian while talking on a cell phone. Someone could construe that as gross negligence, but last year it was perfectly legal in Maryland, and it is still legal in many states.

When you look at laws, you don't look at what you'd do as a judge or a jury, or what you think a really good judge or a really good jury would do, you have to look at how some prosecutor who wants to rack up another win could misuse the law by playing to a juries sympathies or whatever. We don't live in a perfect world, and we can't just assume people will interpret vague language in a liberal way. Sometimes they'll interpret it in the strictest possible way. That's just how the world works.