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A peer who was jailed for sending text messages while driving on a motorway has said he wants to work as a road safety campaigner. Lord Ahmed, 52, of Rotherham, sent and received a total of five messages while driving along the M1 in South Yorkshire on Christmas Day 2007. He was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison for dangerous driving, but was freed by the Court of Appeal 16 days later. Lord Ahmed said he now wanted to help road safety charities' campaigns. Fatal crash He told BBC News: "As far as the road safety campaigners are concerned I hope to work with them in future because we should have road safety - I made a mistake, people make mistakes." The peer, who returned to work at the House of Lords on Monday, said he believed many people sent and received text messages while driving. He said: "There are people... I mean this is a busy way of life these days but it was wrong. It is wrong and I'm quite happy to go and campaign to say, 'Don't make my mistake'." Lord Ahmed's Jaguar hit a stationary car in the outside lane of the motorway about 10 minutes after he had sent and received the text messages. The driver of the other car, Martyn Gombar, 28, from Leigh, Greater Manchester, died in the crash. Police, Lord Ahmed's sentencing judge and the Court of Appeal agreed that his texting was not related to the crash and there was little he could have done to avoid it.
Lord Ahmed's Jaguar hit a stationary car in the outside lane of the motorway about 10 minutes after he had sent and received the text messages.
A bit of revisionism:QuoteLord Ahmed's Jaguar hit a stationary car in the outside lane of the motorway about 10 minutes after he had sent and received the text messages. Previously three minutes.
Reading about this in the papers on Sunday I notice that the Noble Lord is laying the blame on the media. Apparently he was "only responding to journalists' texted enquiries" ~ so that's all right then.
