BBC Breakfast this morning - apparently a survey says use of hands free mobile (legal) is declining while use of hands-on phones is increasing!!!
Where's the logic? What're we like?
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People bought hands free kits to avoid prosecution when the law changed, but as they now realise the chances of getting caught are next to nothing they don't bother using them.
The proposed change to a 3 point endorsement might make a dofference, though.
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I think it is law already.
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I think it is law already.
At the moment you only get a £30 fine. Next year it will change to 3 points plus £60 fine.
IMO this may deter some but the only way to deter the majority is to have more traffic cops on the roads. I think many drivers at the moment take the chance on being able to spot a police car and drop the phone before they are seen using it.
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My bad, I thought the three penalty points law was in effect already.
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Car transporter on M3 this morning. I flashed him out to overtake a caravan. He has almost passed it when he hit the brakes and swerved left, almost sideswiping the car pulling the caravan, who had to emergency stop. The transporter swerved left into Winchester services. As i passed, I looked across. Guess what? He had a mobile stuck to his ear.
V
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Yes, quite often I see a bad driver and look to see what kind of twerp is doing that, and see they have a phone to their ear. I don't think more laws are the answer, we didn't even need the original law banning their use, as it was already covered by undue care and attention, careless driving, without due regard to other road users etc... What is missing are Police to enforce it.
Altered the potentially offensive ending to this post. smokie
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There is nothing wrong with using a mobile handset in your car, only make sure there are no life forms in the vicinity. To that end I get more irritated by drivers of big heavy cars negotating busy junctions than drivers of small lights cars driving down empty roads.
I could see the use of a mobile handset when driving will become like drink driving. Several older people will remember there was a time when if you caused an accident when drunk driving it was acceptable to say 'But I was drunk'. To my mind there is much the same culture when people use their mobiles now. Drink driving is not deemed acceptable because you could have been driving safer (by being sober). Why don't we see mobile phone usage in the same light?
On the way back home at 1AM along the M1 a car passed me where the driver had diabolical lane disapline. I saw him swerve into lane 1 from lane 2, only to swerve into lane 3, before going back to use lane 2. I though about using my mobile when driving and reporting the incident to the police, In the end I just let him go, expecting to see a cop car, or a crash further on.
The odd thing about making emergency phone calls on the motorway is that it is fine to drive and use you mobile in an emergency. However we are told not to drive using mobiles and the hard shoulder is there if we need to stop in an emergency. Could the police prosicute you for using your mobile phone, in an emergency on the motorway, carrying on to your destination is not an emergency itself?
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Torque means nothing without RPM
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Yep, it's 'cos the law is unenforceable. I'd much rather they targeted the real problem with a real solution, like raised the standards of driving tests and penalised actual dangerous driving more harshly, rather than come up with cosmetic laws like the anti-mobile ones which are impossible to enforce consistently
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"I'd much rather they targeted the real problem with a real solution, like raised the standards of driving tests and penalised actual dangerous driving more harshly, rather than come up with cosmetic laws like the anti-mobile ones which are impossible to enforce consistently"
Agree..
But we have a Government which believes in laws rather than enforcement...
I suspect it's because the lawyers run the country for the benefit of ... lawyers...:-)
:-((
madf
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Until the penalties get much more realistic (the paltry three years prison sentence in the North East handed out just a few minutes ago to a lorry driver who killed a woman after hitting a line of cars at 60mph whilst reading a text message is a prime example), then the problem won't go away.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Not a huge step to add in satnav type facilities to a mobile so it "knows" if it's on a road and what speed it's doing, then bars all calls except for emergency numbers.
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Not a huge step to add in satnav type facilities to a mobile so it "knows" if it's on a road and what speed it's doing, then bars all calls except for emergency numbers.
what's wrong with your passenger answering it?
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..um..er...*thinks quickly*...
oh, and voice recognition so if it's not the registered owner of the phone then it cuts out...um...
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In the same BBC programme, as some posters have suggested, drivers said they continued to use their mobiles because they believed they wouldn't get caught
When they were asked for a solution to the problem:
60% - yes - sixty percent - said the use of phones should be illegal in vehicles - full stop!
Maybe drivers are finally realising that phones are a curse as well as a blessing and that there is a limit to our human capabilities and the number of things we can do at one time
I worked for someone briefly who was an absolute pain constantly phoning to find out where I was, when I would be somewhere else and so on
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Driving down the A556 towards the M6 on Monday morning. Driver of the car behind had a mobile and was talking whilst holding it. Every now and then ask traffic speeds changed you could see the other hand come of the steering wheel to change gear. No attempt to put phone down or cradle it with his neck. Every time he took his hand off the wheel it swerved slightly.
This road has two lanes in each direction and only a barrier for the section near the M56... so he could easily have swerved into oncoming traffic. And he did this all the way from the M56 to the M6! Unbelievable.
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I'm always stunned by the arrogance of such drivers
It's like holding up a sign saying "I'm a better driver than the lot of you"
- "Look - No Hands!"
Does it take a crash for them to learn?
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Mobiles in cars??
There is no way that I am having one of those things that you fix above a baby's cot hanging from my rear view mirror.
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I thought it was just me DD !
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>> Mobiles in cars?? There is no way that I am having one of those things that you fix above a baby's cot hanging from my rear view mirror.
What not even a magic roundabout version ? ( motoring link)
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"What not even a magic roundabout version ? ( motoring link)"
But isn't it illegal to hang things from the rear view mirror. Not even fluffy dice.
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People talk about mobiles being distracting - I just find they send me to sleep
Whenever I'm going for a drive I switch on my mobile, put on my favourite cd - "50 greatest lullabys"
Put my slippered feet up on the dashboard...... lovely ...zzzzzzzzz
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