I read this story and words just failed me. Actually, words didn't fail me....eloquence did. I could not respond to this story, initially, without the foulest of comments directed towards the execrable, scabulous, doltish, dim witted and selfish offender.
I live in the heart of "Essex Girl" land and I see this behaviour all the time.....vacuous, pouty lipped, ugg booted, blond extentioned, vacant eyed trolls with one hand on wheel, other on phone. yak yak txt txt.
I feel sick to the pit of my stomach at this story. The girl should be locked up for life AND have her fingers removed AND be forced to listen to the Nokia ring tone at full blast for all of eternity. There can be no forgiveness for that sort of behaviour, especially bearing in mind her insensitive remarks about it being acceptable to use a phone whilst driving sometimes.
|
Probably partly due to lack of experience but I find even adjusting heater settings while driving is distracting and now will wait for the lights before doing anything other than steering and using the pedals.
I just cannot see how texting is not distracting. At least she appears to have shown some remorse although its a bit late for that.
While what she did was very wrong maybe some people are just thick and do not generaly realise how dangerious they are being? Maybe we need even more education for the general public.
I wonder how many of us here have taken their eyes of the roads for just two seconds while tuning a radio? Hopefully not many but I bet there is a few, and that is enough to cause the crash that happened in this case.
|
I wonder how many of us here have taken their eyes of the roads for just two seconds while tuning a radio?
All too many of us I am sure Rattle.
Distracted by something - perhaps a burning cigarette in my lap or on the floor, something like that - once in America I started to drive my Plymouth off the road at 70 or so.
Instead of saying 'Hey, watch out!' or something of the sort my woman passenger, a Californian real-estate agent, started screaming like a train whistle. It had the desired effect but I found it intensely annoying for some reason.
|
>> I wonder how many of us here have taken their eyes of the roads for just two seconds while tuning a radio? All too many of us I am sure Rattle.
My first accident was caused by changing a cassette back in '75... never again!
|
|
|
|
|
If good can come from bad, then I can hope that the publicity from this case may deter others from following suit. Hopefully.
|
|
A pretty woman is quite distracting :-) testing her even more so
|
|
This seems a very short sentence, especially when you consider the four years handed down to the woman in Southampton who killed a cyclist who had jumped a red light.
|
This seems a very short sentence especially when you consider the four years handed down to the woman in Southampton who killed a cyclist who had jumped a red light.
It does seem short as both were, on the reported facts, pretty serious cases of head down texting. You will know soton better than I do but I had the strong impression from reports of that case that although the cyclist had passed a red light some time before the accident he could equally well have been in the same piece of road legitimately.
|
This quite appalling case reminded me of the absolute prizewinning example of inappropriate activity behind the wheel I saw a couple of years ago on the M40 somewhere near High Wycombe.
Youngish female driver in Audi A4 doing 90-odd up the fast lane, about 10 feet off the back bumper of the car in front. Phone crooked under her chin, document spread out on steering wheel, on which document she was writing something (or at least attempting to).
The car in front then braked as the traffic was starting to bunch. Lady Genius got to within a couple of feet, car in front put hazards on, she braked and damn near lost control.
I had dropped well back by this time. Have always wondered whether she actually got to wherever it was she was going.
And to think I had assumed that all suicidally daft drivers were my own gender. Lesson learned, there.
|
Some manufacturers bug me as well, My Suzy V was fitted with a good quality aftermarket CD. Sony, I think.. The volume up an down were on the far edge of the front panel and it was a fumble in the unknown to find them, even when parked.
It now resides in a box in the workshop, it's place being taken by an old tape/radio with a good old-fashioned knob to turn. Likewise, I never touch either radio/CD or heater controls in the C3, they're all digital readouts with stupid little buttons all over the place.
It has an LCD speedo as well...great in the sun, you just can't see it.
Ted
|
|
|
|
|
>>vacuous, pouty lipped, ugg booted, blond extentioned, vacant eyed trolls with one hand on wheel, other on phone. yak yak txt txt.
Tack, I couldn't agree more. My pet hate! Sometimes wish I was a copper so I could have a field day dragging halfwits like this through every court in the land. Lifetime driving ban at least!
|
...This seems a very short sentence especially when you consider the four years handed down to the woman in Southampton who killed a cyclist who had jumped a red light...
In the latest case, I think the car was stopped - broken down - blocking the carriageway.
The victim remained in it, against all advice to get out, even if you are on a hard shoulder.
In the cyclist's case, apart from the red light, the cyclist was moving along the nearside of the road as he/she should have been.
I'm not saying I agree, but the court in the latest case will have apportioned a little more of the blame to the victim than in the cyclist's case, hence the lower sentence.
|
Some of these responses are very judgmental IMHO.
I would wager that every single one of us has at least once in our driving career done something stupid, or let our attention wander occasionally. 99.99% of the time we'll have got away with it. Nobody was injured or killed, and no harm was done. 0.01% of the time, it will have gone wrong, and made the headlines.
I am not making light of the death of an innocent person, and I fully support the full weight of the law being brought to bear on this motorist, or indeed anyone who kills or seriously injures anyone as a direct result of their negligence or their doing something illegal.
On the other side though, I wonder how many of those calling for this woman to be hanged can, hand on heart, say they have driven every single mile of their motoring career giving the road ahead, and their fellow road users their undivided attention, because I can't.
If I add up the 300 or so thousand miles (with one minor non-fault RTA and a clean license) I've driven in the last decade, I've sent the odd text (not for ages, admittedly) and snuck in the odd phone call, as well as fished around for a burning fag end (when I smoked), chatted to a passenger, thought about things going on in my life at the time, etc etc. I'm sure, if I really think about it, an unfortunately positioned vehicle / pedestrian / animal at a specific time could have dramatically altered my life to date.
Cheers
DP
|
DP - didn't you know all BRs are perfect !
The distraught mother of the little girl that was killed was on the news yesterday, I doubt very much whether she cares about the proportionality of blame for instance. My heart went put to her.
|
|
|
The thing is, DP, I see many, many drivers using mobiles whilst driving every day. And I only usually drive 16 miles a day. The vast majority of those who do it, therefore, must be habitual offenders, who are therefore displaying a couldn't-care-less attitude to the rest of us. It can not be the case that all those people I see each day are doing it just the once, on the off chance, in the way you describe. It would be an extraordinary coincidence that they are all having their little "moment" in front of me.
This is an offence which is probably more serious than drink driving, and I wish to heaven that they could all be caught and banned. From driving AND from owning a mobile phone.
In fact, perhaps the threat of a mobile phone ban would be more of a deterrent to some of these manslaughter-in-waiting cases than a driving ban.
|
Unless the flip-top phone had had some app installed to enable it to speak-aloud incoming text messages (unlikely),
exactly HOW could this woman RECEIVE text messages "without taking my eyes off the road" ?
It's a blatant falsity.
The judge should have ordered her thumb be removed. Make a nice match for her brain.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
