sad very sad
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Does drinking a Medium Latte purchased at Norton Caines services while driving along the M6(toll) at 90 MPH constitute "not being in control"?
purely hypothetical question you understand.
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Might there be an interesting test case, where a motorist was found holding an apple while negotiating a corner, and accused of Further investigation showed that the object in question was of inedible plastic, and the motorist had no intention whatever of eating it (neither was it a disguised mobile phone). No doubt another regulation could be found?
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Turning a corner one-handed must be an offence for which fixed penalties were properly designed. To defend, in the absence of a good reason, i.e. it didn't happen, is a reflection on the defendant. Pity costs weren't awarded to the prosecution for a frivolous defence.
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I think that's the crux of really, turning a corner with an object like an apple means that you can only really grip the wheel one handed. In a town etc, this has to be classed as not in full control. Ester Ranzen was "done" a little while ago for not seeing pedestrians on a crossing. She was stopped by a bib on a bike behind her. From what I remember she went to court because she didn't like the attitude of the policeman. She probably hasn't seen the results of rta's that he has. She lost as well.
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Hi, So what are the cup holders for that are fitted in most cars nowadays?
I have two in the front and two in the back.
Are the manufacturers encouraging us to break the law?
Clive.
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They're for holding cups, for those family picnics, etc. For when the gods of weather have seen what you are doing.
Would you really put a cup in each, fill it with coke or tea and drive round town?
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Even though the CPS may have scored an own goal to some extent just to get a result, the whole episode will probably be seen as the police harrassing a relatively innocent motorist whilst the real outlaws are getting away with it.
Perhaps a few thousand more people will move into the "I knew the police were going for easy targets" camp.
Every time something like this happens it chips away at the reputation of not just the police but authority in general.
Are the people in charge of the CPS too stupid or just too arrogant to see the possible perception of the decisions they make?
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So say...for instance...this driver WAS weaving, and hit a kiddie. And the police had been seen to be following her. Don't you think they might suffer some criticism for NOT having done something? No win situation really.
We don't know the full facts. Maybe looks heavy handed on the face of it, but the media will always spin a story in the most attractive way for their audience...
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>The Daily Mail's lead story.
Says it all I think. Why have a balanced "this woman attracted the attention of the police because she wasn't in control of her vehicle on a left hand bend, due to eating an apple" when you could give it a bit of good old Daily Mail spin?
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Every paper today is covering it, with remarkable unanimity. The link I posted is the Daily Telegraph.
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the whole episode will probably be seen as the police harrassing a relatively innocent motorist whilst the real outlaws are getting away with it.
Now why would that be?
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They're for holding cups, for those family picnics, etc.
As someone who frequently picnics in the car, I just wish car manufacturers could design the rest of the dashboard, fascia, etc in a way that was more picnic-friendly.
In fact, the un-picnic-friendly design of cars would undoubtedly lead Sherlock Holmes to deduce that cup-holders could not possibly be intended for use primarily on picnics.
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"As someone who frequently picnics in the car, I just wish car manufacturers could design the rest of the dashboard, fascia, etc in a way that was more picnic-friendly."
Too true, there's often NO horizontal surfaces of any kind other than the floor.
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As someone who frequently picnics in the car, I just wish car manufacturers could design the rest of the dashboard, fascia, etc in a way that was more picnic-friendly.
If you go back a few years most cars DID have flat surfaces for picnics. My dad's new Fiesta is just rubbish for going to McDonalds :-)
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>>My dad's new Fiesta is just rubbish for going to McDonalds
A Galaxy is brilliant for McDonals and Burker King Drive Thru. You can flop any of the seats forward an lo, a flat suitable surface. Makes taking the wife out to dinner pretty cheap.
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If you go back a few years most cars DID have flat surfaces for picnics. My dad's new Fiesta is just rubbish for going to McDonalds :-)
Ahh, takes me back to the good old days of the Fiesta Mark III. Shame no Fiesta since has been able to touch it.
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I have seen lots of different cars with picnic trays on the back, Cosworth Sierra for example.
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>>Would you really put a cup in each, fill it with coke or tea and drive round town?
Yes.
Every morning with a coffee from the coffee shop near the office and every time my daughter gets in the car with juice/coke/yuckky-stuff.
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"turning a corner with an object like an apple means that you can only really grip the wheel one handed. In a town etc, this has to be classed as not in full control."
On this basis it is safe to assume that one armed drivers are banned from town centres or face prosecution every time they turn a corner.
I think the problem stems from the police or prosecution not making clear what she was prosecuted for. I really doubt that court documents will read that the offense was holding an apple. If the policeman felt that she was not in control, then it really doesn't matter what she was holding, or not holding.
I feel her big mistake was challenging the authorities. A £30 fine grew to £60 and I wonder if she ever has reason to deal with the police again future, if this incident won't come back to haunt her.
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I won't lie, I haven't read this thread as I've just got in but why didn't she just pay the 30 quid and be done with it. Right or wrong. She was eating an apple in front of a cop car.
Incidently, the cops were doing their job...it's just questionable the lengths they went to to do it.
--
Adam
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What really puzzles me with this case, and others of a similar nature, is that the CPS eagerly pursue it whereas, with other more serious and apparently straightforward cases, they bottle out.
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That'll be because they have to balance the likliehood of getting a conviction on the strength of the evidence, and often teh evidence is not robust enough.
Ergo, they must have fancied their chances with this one...
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Similar one this morning on good old GMTV. Guy stops to ask the BIB for directions. BIB think his music is too loud and he gets a £30 fine! Guy was driving a Nissan 200 and listening to Riverdance. IMHO playing Riverdance should lead to immediate imprisonment and if other people can hear it imprisonment for life!!!
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As an aside, a lettter in today's Telegraph:-
"Sir ? Sarah McCaffery should consider herself unfortunate (News, Jan 25). Recently, while, driving I halted at a roundabout to allow a car to cross in front of me. As it passed, I could clearly see that the driver was speaking into a mobile phone in his right hand. He was using his left hand to steer. Clasped between thumb and forefinger of this hand was a partly-eaten sandwich.
The car was a marked police car. The driver was in uniform."
This replicates my own encounter referred to in another topic. But going back to the original post, it seems to me entirely reasonable that this lady should have been prosecuted and that evidence should have been presented to support that prosecution. But the figure of £10,000 has now emerged as the cost, against the previous claim of some £400 including £60 for the two flights(!).
It's a matter of keeping things in proportion and spending what is reasonable -- if a picture of the scene was important, then what was wrong with a copper on a bike (OK, in a car then) using a stills or video camera to get driver's eye views? They would surely be more relevant than fancy aerial pictures.
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violent crime up
police waste time on trivia
of course people are cheesed off
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Note the word "consider".
Does no-one else see this as absolutely ridiculous?
When the cop discovered his mistake and that the mobile was in-fact an apple, what did he hope to achieve by reaching for his Fixed Penalty Pad? Wouldn't a polite "Do you know why I pulled you over Miss?" and then sending her on her way with a lecture have been more appropriate and productive?
Instead of a "Thank-you officer, I won't do it again", it has resulted in a huge waste of the court's time, thousands of pounds in court and admin costs, public ridicule of the police and alienated yet another otherwise law-abiding member of the public.
Plod needs all the public support and cooperation it can get and this is not the way to achieve it.
trancer said:
>I feel her big mistake was challenging the authorities. A £30 fine grew
>to £60 and I wonder if she ever has reason to deal with the police again
>future, if this incident won't come back to haunt her.
Are you saying that if we exercise our right to challenge 'authorities' we should expect and accept illegal persecution?
I'm sorry but the longer we just sit back and accept this carp the worse things will get.
Kevin...
Yet another example of braindead public servants is here (until tomorrow morning):
tinyurl.com/4lssk
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Cut and Paste missed the leading para. of above message. Here it is in full:
All the reports I have read indicate that plod initially pulled her over because he saw her holding something and thought that it was a mobile phone, not because she appeared to be unable to control the vehicle. The Chairman's comments appear to support this in that there is no mention of any other evidence, only that:
"Ken Buck, the chairman of the bench, told Miss McCaffery: "We accept that there are times when you can drive with one hand but in holding an apple while negotiating a left-hand turn we consider you not to have been in full control.""
ote the word "consider".
Does no-one else see this as absolutely ridiculous?
When the cop discovered his mistake and that the mobile was in-fact an apple, what did he hope to achieve by reaching for his Fixed Penalty Pad? Wouldn't a polite "Do you know why I pulled you over Miss?" and then sending her on her way with a lecture have been more appropriate and productive?
Instead of a "Thank-you officer, I won't do it again", it has resulted in a huge waste of the court's time, thousands of pounds in court and admin costs, public ridicule of the police and alienated yet another otherwise law-abiding member of the public.
Plod needs all the public support and cooperation it can get and this is not the way to achieve it.
trancer said:
>I feel her big mistake was challenging the authorities. A £30 fine grew
>to £60 and I wonder if she ever has reason to deal with the police again
>future, if this incident won't come back to haunt her.
Are you saying that if we exercise our right to challenge 'authorities' we should expect and accept illegal persecution?
I'm sorry but the longer we just sit back and accept this carp the worse things will get.
Kevin...
Yet another example of braindead public servants is here (until tomorrow morning):
tinyurl.com/4lssk
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You mention the money aspect and why that shouldn't have made her accept the fine, but don't look at the other side of the coin.
People are saying the CPS shouldn't have pursued this because of the cost, but then are they saying to people 'argue with us till it gets too expensive, and you'll get away scot free'?
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Not really. I see what you mean, Bazza, but it's more like "Argue with us until the evidence runs out, and then we'll see if it's worth getting more."
If resources were purely on a first-come first served basis, you could send 30 cops and a team of sniffer dogs after one or two burglars, and probably catch them, but the rest would be more or less free to do what they pleased. So full resources aren't thrown at the pursuit of every crime, either before or after the arrest is made.
Instead, as with everything in life (eat or buy a Maserati...) finite resources are distributed to try to make the best use of them, and I have a problem believing that this was the most cost effective way of spending the £10k this case cost.
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>People are saying the CPS shouldn't have pursued this because of the cost, but then
>are they saying to people 'argue with us till it gets too expensive, and you'll get
>away scot free'?
I don't think that people are saying this.
They are questioning why the CPS pursued such a ridiculous case and what their priorities are.
Do we really need to clog up the courts and spend thousands of pounds of taxpayers money simply to protect the vanity of a cop who appears to have cocked-up?
The CPS should have read the docket.. 'Holding an apple while turning left' and thrown it back to the Chief Constable with a recommendation that the responsible officer be assigned further training.
Kevin...
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keep it Motoring please people.
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Playing devils advocate here. One of the earlier comments was that she was not eating the apple but picking it up after it had rolled onto the floor.
The case was brought as she was not in control of her vehicle whilst negotiating a left hand bend.
I don't know the facts- and this is a huge amount of supposition on my part for the sake of debate- but if the above is the case, and she was leaning into the passenger footwell of the car to retrieve the apple then isn't this just a tad dangerous?
Other threads on this site condemn similar driving. And if she had caused an accident because of this how much would this have cost the taxpayer?
This is not my true opinion- I refuse to give that as I do not have all the facts. Just seemed a bit one sided.....
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But was it the passenger footwell? If it were the driver's footwell, then it could conceivably have rolled under the brake pedal, and so needed retrieving as quickly (and as safely) as possible. I don't recall any evidence that the apple had been bitten.
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That's why hypothetically used passenger side. Although, technically could have tried to dislodge with foot.
Thinking about it- isn't it much harder to reach down into drivers footwell- rather than quickly ducking into passengers side?
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I ran into the back of a lorry once while picking up a conker from the passenger footwell.
I wasn't about to eat it though...
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There are so many variables we'll never reeally know, of course. I did once have a nasty moment when one of our kids on the back seat put a bottle on the floor. It rolled under my seat and did go under a pedal. Masty. Nasty for junior as well . . .
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>Nasty for junior as well . . .
Many years ago when I worked for Rio Tinto one of the engineering managers dropped a lit cigarette between his legs while driving.
Now *that* was nasty for junior.
Kevin...
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She said the number of deaths and injuries on the roads was "unacceptable" and two thirds of such accidents were down to driver inattention.
oh i thought they were all down to speeding?
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/4250829.stm
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If anything, it serves to highlight the law to millions of readers. Let's have some high profile cases of people being fined for driving with foglights on in the clear, or having a headlight bulb out. Unfortunately until there are more police back on the roads, we'll have to make do with the occasional headline rather than continued gentle policing of the masses.
Conditioning has made most drivers completely unaware of the risks associated with driving. Every apple eater, mobile phone user and tailgater should be made to attend an RTA. In fact they aren't even called "accidents" anymore are they?
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