Increased Sanctions Proposed for Mobile Phone Use

[Giantvanman]

^see post 17

 

[davidjpowell]

I started to read the thread, and got a little bored at seeing people repeatig themsleves at about page 3.

My thoughts. First of all drivers who cannot recognise when a handsfree conversationn is getting too involved that they need to stop or deal with it later, should not be on the road full stop.

Secondly, there are statistics saying that people have accidents on the phone. People also have accidents when they are travelling too quickly, or are just bad drivers.

Thirdly, The law has not kept up with the device progress. So may cars now have some integration. Some manufacturers being better than others. to outlaw it, does not really work for devices in their current form

Fourthly, people have to be caught.

Fifthly, It at least gives some people to declare that they are holy than though, although one wonders how many people really ignore that phone call that they have been waiting all day for.....

 

[boxbrownie]

But that's what happens when the public, senior officers and the government start categorising offences in leagues of seriousness or the "haven't you got anything better to do like catching real criminals" approach.
.

Don't include all the public please, for me I would be happy if there were a Noddy on every street corner and in a car patrolling every street, if your clean nothing to worry about...........throw the book at the rest!

As for being caught using a phone whilst driving, the phone should be stuffed where the bluetooth cannot reach

 

[badj]

the phone should be stuffed where the bluetooth cannot reach

1-100m away, depending on class?

 

[219]

UK companies have all ready started banning handsfree phone use in company vehicles whilst driving....a friend works for National grid where this rule has already been introduced recently....I do agree in certain situations emergency vehicles etc this would not work.

The Fire Service MORR ( Management of operational road risks ) policy has long banned the use of hands free comms as well as handheld whilst driving .

I have always obeyed it although I know many don't .

 

[219]

Very strange, in all the training I have done I had to give commentary and if I could not or it affected my driving I would not pass.. Yes the commentary was sometimes to the instructor sat next to you however often (mainly pursuit training) the instructor in the subject vehicle acted as your control room and you communicated via the radio.. Then on to the tactical, pursuit and containment training where everything is via radio..

Moreover ( I haven't done it ) but one of my colleagues is an ex motorcycle cop and I know all their training had to be done over radio , sometimes at even higher speeds than the already high speeds traffic cars attain .

 

[219]

Kenny

In the context of your post I was replying to , the conversation is more of a distraction than the process of making a call .

Fumbling through menus is not an option I would entertain , even if I had a car with it built in , but the Bury CC9060 kits I have in both my cars seem to work just fine with my Central Scotland dialect . The systems simply learned my speech by asking me to read a selection of words and phrases in my normal voice when originally being installed - very simple and reliable .

I very rarely make outgoing calls whilst driving , rare exceptions being things like calls to my control room in relation to an incident I'm going to - for example delayed by traffic - but most of the time I can pull over to make such calls .

Slightly more often I may take calls at the wheel - again if going to something and it is a withheld number I may suspect it is the control room telling me I no longer need to proceed ; but most of the time I ignore incoming calls and let them go to voicemail then deal with them when I can stop . In such cases the hands free kit alerts me audibly to the call and I just have to reply 'accept' or 'decline' ; ignoring it is my usual option .

I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of received calls I've answered in the last month , and can't remember when I last made an outgoing call , but there will have been two or three this year .

I also find 'Siri' on my iPhone ( which works via hands free ) useful since I can ask it to read a text out loud , at a time convenient to me ( when on a straight and quiet bit of road ) and can use it to dictate a reply to a text the same way . This is not as distracting as a live telephone call because I can choose when I want the message read to me and I can take my time to consider a response , if any , then again send one when it suits me .

I have seen people fiddle with awkward inbuilt systems in newer cars which I agree are a complete distraction , not even for communications - they might be fiddling with settings for the heater or some other basic function - and my opinion is such systems should be , by design , inaccessible whilst the car is moving - just as most Sat Nav units won't allow themselves to be programmed on the move .

People who feel that they , or their jobs , are more important than the rules laid down by law are every bit as guilty of lack of regard for fellow human beings as Harry Clarke was .

 

[219]

That's a sensible response.

I think that use of a non-handsfree mobile phone is to be deplored, but the chance of being caught are negligible. There is already a law against it but it is ineffectually enforced. So the chancers out there will just continue to chance it.

Without proper enforcement extending any law (leaving aside the merits and demerits of doing so) is pointless.

One method of enforcement which could perhaps be further exploited , would be sending out NIPs to those captured on CCTV using handheld phones at the wheel .

This is already used for other traffic offences and both fixed cameras at the roadside , as well as mobile laser cameras used for speed enforcement but which record video could be used for this , with citation of phone records for the driver where timed video evidence suggests an offence was committed .

The real risk and uncertainty of being caught would be a significant deterrent , and the donkey work of trawling through footage could be done by low paid admin workers rather than by highly paid police officers who have better things to do .

 

[219]

I do appreciate the impact on Government 'cuts' on the level and quality of service the traffic Police can provide, unfortunately this is a consequence...

Nearly every time I go on the UK motorways I see someone on a mobile...the really crazy thing for me is many of them are driving highly expensive SUV's (RR/Cayenne/Q7 etc) with OEM in-car hands free systems that link easily to any smart phone....so why not use this???

Such people are too important to be bothered with laws .

 

[219]

Three guys I worked with who were in the 16-18 year service range have left and i don't blame them. One now a mini cab driver, one works for a funeral director and the other for his father.
Judging by what the Chief told one of them, there is a degree of consternation about the numbers who are calling it a day…WTF did they think was going to happen? Knobheads.

I feel sorry for the public because in a a few short years there is going to be very little experience around as most of the 'middle service' guys will be specialising so not many around to show the youngsters the ropes.

The Fire Service is no different , good guys are leaving every week , leaving the service the poorer for the loss of their skills .

 

[Bonecho]

I spend alot of time walking these days and the amount of people I see texting while on the move is truly shocking and I just don't mean people who are stuck in traffic.

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

1-100m away, depending on ass?

Fixed that for you

 

[tangey]

^see post 17

The crux of which was

This is a good example of where a lawful act become an unlawful act because of the circumstances. Simples?

Having just now read that, I conclude this is mostly a non-discussion. Any driver having an accident whilst doing ANY action not directly involved with driving the car, will always be open to a potential "without due care or attention" allegation. Smoking, eating, reaching for something in a door bin etc.

However, if it becomes default that a person having an accident who was on a hands free call at the time is ALWAYS deemed to be driving without due care, then surely the logical (not that I agree with it) extension would be to make the act of being on a hands free call itself a driving offence. One assumes traffic laws etc are ultimately there to protect people from accidents/injuries. On that basis the law should cover the act that is careless, not just the act that was careless that at that particular time resulted in an accident. It's kinda (although I accept not really) like making drunk driving an offence, but only if you have an accident as a result. It's been proved that being drunk is by its nature dangerous. If it's similarly proved for hands free, then similar rules should apply.

As an extension, I would be all in favour of smoking whilst driving being made illegal. IMO, for the most part it means the person smoking does not have two hands available at all times. But that's probably another discussion for another time.

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

^^^ yep, and then it makes a mockery of allowing hands-free phones. The law should be clear on this.

 

[markjay]

The legislation is light years behind.

Talking on the phone... these people never heard of email, twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Viber, Snapchat, Facebook, Skype, etc etc.....?

Even the good old Text message.... I was driving today with the phone legally in its cradle and the screen blank. Then ping ping, the screen lights up, and a text message rolls on it, displayed for several minutes, before the screen goes blank again.

I could have glanced at it while driving, without taking my hands off the wheel, without moving my head even. Had I read the message while driving, would have I been committing an offence? Theoretical question, can't be proven, not even if a police car videotaped me while driving, or there were passengers as witnesses... totally unenforceable.

The issue of having a versatile personal communicator device in your car goes way beyond the question of making a phone call....

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

^ agreed, so the operative word becomes 'use' then? (From thread title)

 

[whitenemesis]

Enforce a signal block unless car stationary and IGN off?

 

[ItalianTuneUp]

What about needing to use it for an emergency/special case/passenger usage? Law of unintended consequences?

 

[boxbrownie]

1-100m away, depending on class?

Yes sure, any depth in between will do

 

[TheFoX]

It's not so much the law, but whether anyone is actually interested in enforcing the law.

I have a Dash Cam installed in my car, primarily to protect me should I be involved in a collision or witness an accident, giving me CCTV footage to back any claim.

Over the last year, I have witnessed two major incidents where another motorist has almost caused a collision, the worst being the Porsche driver overtaking a line of traffic at high speed (we were doing 60 mph in NSL, and I estimate his speed in excess of 100 mph, as he left us standing and disappeared up the road at a rate of knots). Oncoming vehicles were being forced to swerve on to the hard shoulder.

Now you would think that the Police would be interested in that bit of bad behaviour, especially when it is caught on CCTV, wouldn't you? Obviously not...

They sent me a form to fill in, and it asks a number of questions, which it states, 'If you cannot answer yes to all these questions, a prosecution is unlikely'.

One of those questions states, 'Do you have independent witnesses to verify your statement?'. How on earth do you get an independent witness when you are travelling at 60 mph. Are you expected to brake hard, jump out and ask the dog walker if he just saw a car speeding at over 100 mph?

The fact is that the Police have engineered their reporting system to put people off reporting incidents. Unless there is a collision, injuries to persons or even death, the Police just aren't interested.

I have given up reporting to the Police now. Two forms have been thrown in the bin, and even calling 101 to report a neighbour's burglar alarm going off met with a indifference, basically being told that unless I could spot someone scrummaging around the vacant property, they couldn't be bothered to attend.

Policing in the 21st century has definitely taken a nose dive.

As for laws, why make new ones if no one is going to police them? The reason so many people flout laws is because they know that they will get away with it.