I get very poor reception using a frying pan.

I think the law referes to "using a mobile phone" or likely anything that could be construed as providing the same function as a mobile phone (so unless your frying pan has some feature we're not aware of, then its ok) - i.e. you are concentrating on making the call (dialing and speaking whilst trying to operate the car controls, which, unlike talking to a passenger, you cannot just stop and put the phone down whilst you mnake a manourvre and pick up where you left off without some error (the distraction).

I believe this is why (as well as the hearing problem caused) use of personal stereos or iPods, etc where you wear headphones is also banned for drivers (and motorscylists/cyclists). What I (and HJ - he's said so many times) is why smoking is not also banned for drives whilst driving along, given that eating/drinking is - his (approx) words of "you are trying to set something dangling from your mouth on fire whilst driving" are quite telling.

I think to be on the safe side everyone should just stick to making phonecalls (even on hands-free systems), like eating/drinking/smoking until you've stopped the car and turned the engine off. As I've observed, the person on the other end of the phone conversation won't be able to know that you'll need to suddenly concentrate on a tricky manourvre and temporarily keep quiet. Nothing is that important that you have to answer it when you're driving - better to have a "pager" system that says X, Y or Z has called, then you can find a convenient place to stop to call them back. Better to be safe than sorry.

So eating an apple in a traffic jam at 0.5mph should be illegal then? I don't even mind people texting at the traffic lights, so long as they put the sodding phone down and move off when it goes green.

As for food, would I be banned from going through the KFC drive through and having the bag on my passenger seat on the way home? Or would I only be fined if I touched the bag en route?

It's clearly illegal for me to drive along holding a phone in my hand yet nothing in the law says I can't drive holding a frying pan.

Well Jimmy Carr successfully argued against his 3 points for using a mobile phone by arguing that he was actually recording a joke onto a dictaphone and not using a mobile phone.

It depends what we think the crux of the problem is: holding a device or interacting with a remote object which distracts the driver from the task of driving.

For me, it's clearly a case of the latter. Hands-free would save me 3 points and £60 but there's no way I would argue that it is 'safer'. Your mileage may vary.