Mobile Phones Hoo Ha!

[Jonathan]

We just had the legal junk faxed to us here, only 2 pages long - It's interesting but :

If you stop to answer the phone, turn the engine off and have the parking brake on - else you are deemed to be in control and common sense will not prevail (bit silly this one if you ask me).

Most coppers 'should' use their heads and most people on the phone would already be driving without due care...you see them all the time pulling out on people and weaving all over the road and doing 40mph on the motorway.

In this case more and more people NEED to be told what to do as they are too thick to look at the options and decide themselves.

Fine or handsfree kit - a hands freekit costs LESS than a fine (does now haha) so if you wanna make calls then you can do so without PC Snake tapping on your window. The law WAS there, but too many people blatently ignored it so they had to raise the stakes - if everyone did as they should then there would be no need to the additional punishment....it's the people's fault 110%

Just a note that Coppers / emergency service with the radio sets are imune to this legeslation (making or receiving radio communications whilst in charge of a vehicle) so they can still use their airwave kit etc which is ammusing.

Technically you can't be done with a phone in a cradle, if you are getting slapped for it it's becuase whilst trying to text with a cradle mounted phone you're probably weaving all over the place and shaking your head like a little crack monkey looking back and forth to the phone instead of doing what you should be doing which is driving - thats called without due care and attention which you can be done for be it a phone, tomtom, apple, bogey or doing your lipstick

I asked if I keep my hand on the phone in the cradle whilst driving and talking, can I get done - answer = no (as long as I don't weave etc) hehe.

Still 1/2 assed if you ask me - if they wanna be serious and stop people doing this make it a 12 month ban and as someone rightly pointed out, how many police do you ever see ? Lots of powers but no-one to enforce them !

[Evil_Dr_Fish]

Using radio's - CB, Walkie Talkies etc is perfectly legal for EVERYONE!

They didn't and couldn't make a legal exception for the fuzz!

We all use walkie talkies on our runs!

I think they're also working on the basis that the number of people who do actually use PMR radios or CB are tiny ...while EVERYONE has a phone (or more than one!)

[Jonathan]

Using radio's - CB, Walkie Talkies etc is perfectly legal for EVERYONE!

Mmmm, digressing off topic for a second, there was definatly a clause in there for non-hands free use for emergency use because I wanted to use and airwave which has a push-to-talk in a car but I can't (or I was advised not to) so comms on the move has to be cell phone for us.

It's the push-to-talk thing that does it becuase you need 1 hand off the wheel to operate the unit - which is why hands free is legal (for now !).

However for the plod they're allowed to use it / phones if circumstances arrise (ie 999 call, persuit) when it's impractical to NOT do so.

I've heard of it before when there's been a hit and run and an off duty copper was following the perp staying in comms with control using a mobile phone - technically illegal but whats the lesser evil....

I will find out for you or at least get the document # - we were definatly told not to use them, the legislation clearly outlines all radio comms as covered by the legeslation.

Taking into account yesterday a young lady was parked in a lay-by, in neutral, hand brake off but engine running and got slapped with 3 points /

[Paul C]

Its not the phones that cause the accidents, its the the women who cannot resist picking them up for the pettiest reasons whilst driving, 99% of the time for some insignificant text or call from another woman.

Did you intercept the texts and calls to get that statistic, or just guess?

I think by a long way, by a mile, beating all others hands down, it's tradesmen in vans

that you can pretty much guarantee to see driving with a hand held phone on the go.

Being a Sparks myself i've lost count of the calls that end or pause with 'hang on a sec

there's a roundabout' or 'gotta put the phone down a sec as i'm passing a copper' etc, etc.

People say that chatting on the phone is no different or more dangerous than to chatting to a

passenger, changing a CD, operating sat nav etc,etc, and thats absolute rubbish of course.

Talking on the phone takes some of your attention away from where you are in a way that

nothing else does. I took the full handsfree kit out of my van last year and everyone just

accepts they can't reach me if i'm driving. In the past i had finished a call while driving and

then thought "hang on, i can't remember the last three roundabouts, traffic lights, and did i

slow for the camera?", because my attention was not 100% in that place. Totally 100%

different to talking to a passenger.

Due to having the kids, shopping, school runs, having a job, doing the housework

and cooking meals etc, i figure that women are 99% better at multi-tasking than

men, so are almost certainly safer using the phone while driving. Yes.

[MPx]

Looks to me like just another unnecessary specific because as a community we wont take the only effective action of requiring more training and a higher std to be achieved with repeat realistic testing to keep up stds of driving on our roads. I've had many similar experiences on the bike to Ian/Charlie etc - but dont really blame the phone - cos I've had even more similar incidents where no phone was involved. Drivers just dont always look, dont always see bikes when they do. Being a biker has made me a better driver...but I sometimes still get surprised when driving a car eg by a fast bike filtering that I hadn't seen.

Its actually a lottery who these phone laws will affect. We all speed, have done for years, despite is being an endorsable offence - but the conviction rate is low enough that we still feel "unlucky" if we get done. Tho of course all those other toe rags that speed in the wrong place at the wrong time deserve whats coming to them......

So I agree with the points made about the relativity of our own mistakes vs those of others. In fact I really beat myself up inside when I cock up while driving - even little things like if I dont stop in time in a Q and block a side turn, or dont signal on roundabout when someones there, or catch myself in the middle lane of a motorway with noone inside, etc etc. (Fortunately my conscience appears to be immune to speed!) Obviously on the very rare occasions that I might answer the phone on the move then I'd do it safely etc.... OK sometimes I do something thats just crass - but on the other hand I'd still definitely put myself with the other 95% of drivers who are better then average (??!!) and honestly believe that I'm better than most of them! So much for the trained mind of the analyst!

Mike

[karluk29]

i was telling robin last night about a friend that is now damged for life after the women behind him had to pick up a toy that her child had thrown into the footwell, she hit my friend at 40mph full on, and he was at a redlight outside a police station.

ban children from cars aswell LOL.

i dont condone driving while on the phone but we all do it, or have done, inc me last night with a copper behind me,

love those black windows BAHAHAHAHA (very slow moving traffic btw in a automatic, so in theory me using the phone

in that situation is like driving the manual esprit with chatting to passenger)

[Mark Blanchard]

The thing that really winds me up is people texting while they're driving. I've got stuck behind them in the past and wonder why they're going so slowly. When I get the chance to over take, there they are looking down at their phone and trying to work out the predictive text. They should be given 6 points IMO.

[Couger]

Did you intercept the texts and calls to get that statistic, or just guess?

I think by a long way, by a mile, beating all others hands down, it's tradesmen in vans

that you can pretty much guarantee to see driving with a hand held phone on the go.

Being a Sparks myself i've lost count of the calls that end or pause with 'hang on a sec

there's a roundabout' or 'gotta put the phone down a sec as i'm passing a copper' etc, etc.

People say that chatting on the phone is no different or more dangerous than to chatting to a

passenger, changing a CD, operating sat nav etc,etc, and thats absolute rubbish of course.

Talking on the phone takes some of your attention away from where you are in a way that

nothing else does. I took the full handsfree kit out of my van last year and everyone just

accepts they can't reach me if i'm driving. In the past i had finished a call while driving and

then thought "hang on, i can't remember the last three roundabouts, traffic lights, and did i

slow for the camera?", because my attention was not 100% in that place. Totally 100%

different to talking to a passenger.

Due to having the kids, shopping, school runs, having a job, doing the housework

and cooking meals etc, i figure that women are 99% better at multi-tasking than

men, so are almost certainly safer using the phone while driving. Yes.

You have got one helluva lady there.. I still stand buy my comments though, 99% of them are an accident waiting to happen(women that is)

[Evil_Dr_Fish]

Just to confrim - we have chatted and PTT radios ARE still perfectly legal.

IF they make hands free's illegal on the basis that we have to push a button then will we also be forbidden from winding our windows down or turning our headlights on while moving?

No one is defending the full on ig'orant phone user...but we fear just how silly some of the sierious suggestions are getting and see them getting their way in the not too distant.

[Dan]

Does anyone know how this would be enforced... i.e. how would people actually be caught committing an act of telephony on the Queen's highway, apart from being eyeballed by a passing police car? Can this detection be automated?

[Evil_Dr_Fish]

Not so much with the automation... So there would potentially be in-car Police film of the car on the road... Mobile phone records showing the phone was in use at the time and then the officer's testimony that it was indeed the driver using it.

[Paul C]

IF they make hands free's illegal on the basis that we have to push a button then will we also be forbidden from winding our windows down or turning our headlights on while moving?

#

But you need to turn your lights on and wind your windows down.

Its not that long ago that we did not have phones in cars. We've always

had windows and lights though, and the operation of windows and lights

is not in any way comparible to a 20 minute chat with a varying degree of

sound quality and understanding, with someone not in the car, relating to

something happening somewhere else. As i say, it would be plain daft to

claim this is akin to, say, turning the heater on. Any argument that it is

in any way the same is a laughable one, and can only ever be so.

Assuming i don't have a 'speed' style bomb under my van, or that i'm not

a fireman/doctor/policeman etc, than i really don't need to use a phone

at the wheel anyway.

The real problem here, is that people now make the phone their masters.

At the bar, at the dinner table, while in conversation, while driving their cars and

even while pissing, people have to answer to them.

It's pathetic, i mean, what did we do before?

[Jonathan]

Vidoe evidence. The systems in cop cars are very well equipped - they just turn the camera as they pull up to you and you've had it.

Some plod now even have cameras on their heads (something I said would happen 4 years ago and got laughed at haha).

Thing is their argument (and it's a good one) is that if you were paying due care & attention you would have seen them and put the phone down....can't argue with that.

The point is if you're in the drivers seat....DRIVE.

Using the controls in a car are part of driving (changing gear, light switches, turn signals...even hand gestures haha) - yakking on a cell phone isn't.

You could argue that changing a CD etc is as bad, which it is but there is no way you can really spot this, phones are easy.

The fact remains, if you're weaving all over the place or doing the head shake thing and a copper thinks you're not in control they can and should pull you for it. Standard of driving in the UK is TERRIBLE and is getting worse and a lot of that imo is the fact people get into their cars and put in the list of priorities -Driving- a fair way down the list.

If you use press to talk radio check the frequency is excempt from this legeslation - some frequencies are NOT allowed but I think from the looks of it they are the un-licenced bands.

[esprit350]

#

The real problem here, is that people now make the phone their masters.

At the bar, at the dinner table, while in conversation, while driving their cars and

even while pissing, people have to answer to them.

when I first got a mobil telephone I only used to turn it on when I wanted to use it, my reply to people who said "tried to ring you on your moblie but it was switched off" was "its for my convenience not yours sorry"

have to admit it is useful in my job for cable tracing , fault finding etc saves a lot of waving and shouting

[Paul C]

when I first got a mobil telephone I only used to turn it on when I wanted to use it, my reply to people who said "tried to ring you on your moblie but it was switched off" was "its for my convenience not yours sorry"

Yesterday night i got home from work, showered, and then turned my phone off

(not silent, actually off). Then at 5.30pm i headed for the pub, everyone i met there

i met by chance, which i kinda like, and i had no way of finding out where anyone was,

i'd have had to wander from pub to pub and find out. I find nothing odd or undesirable

about this. I took my phone out the drawer at 10.00am this morning, turned it on, then

at 2 o'clock i went out with my phone left at home again.

Now i've got elderly parents that are not in good health, so maybe i should carry the thing

and gaze at it everytime it bleeps or shudders, but if that was at the back of my mind all

the time then carrying it would be like when the house phone rings late at night, you think

'oh god, whats happened', i'd have that moment in my pocket every time someone texted

me to say 'I'm in the red lion', i can really live without that.

As i say, it's the fact people feel the need to be there for every call, whether it's while

driving or while sat on the toilet, thats the real issue. There's nothing wrong with being

good old fashioned 'out for the night', i'm about to do that now and will be off the mobile

grid til tomorrow lunchtime. Whatever goes drastically wrong in that time will be no better

for me being textable i'm sure, especially the state i'll be in...

[Evil_Dr_Fish]

Paul - you're misinterpreting hat I was saying...

My point was in the context of should they ban handsfree or radio adjustment on the basis of taking your hands away from the wheel etc...

[Paul C]

Paul - you're misinterpreting hat I was saying...

My point was in the context of should they ban handsfree or radio adjustment on the basis of taking your hands away from the wheel etc...

Mate, if you're gonna bash my misinterpreting hat, then i'll put my digressing pants on and to hell with it!

I see what you say mate, and maybe they should fish (no pun intended) for a better reason to

ban them, as there are many. As i said though, they are unconnected with the car and are not

needed for driving, so the need to use them at the wheel should be challenged, thats only

sensible.

The claim you may 'need' to contact someone 100 yards behind you, would be as valid as my

claim that i 'need' to type a letter (with an old typewriter on my lap) while driving to the persons

house i'm writing to. Both actions are equally uneccesary and they both needlessly take your hands

away from the car and it's controls. While you or I may consider ourselves 'safe' while doing these

things (granted, everytime i get to the end of a line, the typewriter knocks me out of gear), they

are in essence unsafe actions that if adopted by some lesser skilled people would result in bent

metal and flashing blue lights.