Jim...the quick answer to your question is....I don't know what an appropriate sentence would have been, but I am unhappy with this verdict.
I am far from being a "string em up" type. I am, at heart, a liberal about most things. But his actions resulted in 2 deaths and its seems to me that 6 months in prison just doesn't give the right message out to motorists like this chap. He ignored the warning that the car gave him, and the result was that the car was unstable at high speeds. He killed the woman and her unborn child, not the BMW.
People generally seem to view driving fast as some kind of right these days.
Its the Jeremy Clarkson defence...." I am rich and can afford a very fast car and if I want to drive as fast as I like, its up to me ...as long as I don't get caught "
More and more young men like this chap are driving about the country at reckless speeds, hoping the sophisticated engine management systems and the powerful disc brakes will avert a tragedy. If he had been driving a Morris 1000, the car that I learned to drive in 40 odd years ago, the accident would almost certainly have never happened.
A signal needs to be sent to people like him, that their driving skills may not be up to the exacting standards that powerful cars like this need.
Yesterday we were discussing a idiot that managed to dive at 149mph through the M6 Tolls.........my old Morris would never have gone that fast, even if you had glued it to the front of Thunderbird 3 !