Short answer. How obvious the danger was. Reckless imprudence is an inexcusable lack of precaution measured against the person's own situation; simple imprudence is a lack of precaution where the impending damage was not immediate and the danger was not clearly manifest. The Code defines both.
What the law says
Reckless imprudence consists in voluntarily, but without malice, doing or failing to do an act from which material damage results by reason of inexcusable lack of precaution on the part of the person performing or failing to perform such act
Revised Penal Code, Article 365 — Imprudence And Negligence. Read the full provision →
What the law says
Simple imprudence consists in the lack of precaution displayed in those cases in which the damage impending to be caused is not immediate nor the danger clearly manifest.
Revised Penal Code, Article 365 — Imprudence And Negligence. Read the full provision →
Both are careless, and neither is deliberate
The first thing the definitions share is what they exclude. Reckless imprudence is voluntarily, but without malice, doing or failing to do an act from which material damage results. The act is willed; the harm is not intended. That is the whole point of the article: it reaches people who meant no harm and caused it anyway. Nothing in either definition asks whether the accused wanted the result, so a driver's insistence that he never meant to hurt anyone, however true, does not answer the charge. It answers a charge nobody has made.
The dividing line is how visible the danger was
The separation is drawn in the definition of the lesser form. Simple imprudence consists in the lack of precaution displayed in those cases in which the damage impending to be caused is not immediate nor the danger clearly manifest. Where the danger was staring at the person and the harm was about to follow, and he went on anyway, the failure of precaution is inexcusable and the conduct is reckless. Where the risk was real but remote or not obvious, the same carelessness is simple imprudence. The question is not how bad the outcome was, but how apparent the risk had been.
The standard is fitted to the particular person
Recklessness is not assessed against an abstract careful citizen. The article directs attention to the person's employment or occupation, degree of intelligence, physical condition and other circumstances regarding persons, time and place. A professional driver, an electrician or a nurse is measured against what their calling required of them, and conditions at the time count too: the weather, the light, the state of the road, what the person could see. That is why two people doing the identical act can end up on different sides of the line, and why the surrounding facts are usually the contest.
Why the classification is worth fighting over
The article sets different penalties for the two forms, and grades them further by what the act would have amounted to had it been intentional, so the same collision can produce very different exposure depending on which label attaches. Some of the peso figures in the article were revised by later legislation and should not be read off an old copy. What decides the label in practice is physical evidence gathered early — the scene, the vehicle, the damage, records of conditions and of what the person was doing beforehand. That material degrades quickly, so it is worth securing at once.
Related provisions
- Revised Penal Code, Article 365 — Imprudence And Negligence
- Revised Penal Code, Article 100 — Criminal Liability Means Civil Liability