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Mobile phone ban: Road Safety or just another tax?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Bearing in mind that you can still use a phone as long as its in a cradle it sounds pointless, I mean your still allowed to send texts.
Picture it, head on collision caused by the driver trying to work out how to put the exclamation mark....but the phone was in a cradle.
If they were being serious they would have made drivers using a phone at all illegal.
Picture it, head on collision caused by the driver trying to work out how to put the exclamation mark....but the phone was in a cradle.
If they were being serious they would have made drivers using a phone at all illegal.
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So in such cases it doesn't make much of a difference whether you're using a hands-free system.
I don't happen to agree with a total ban though. I agree with a ban on people handling their mobiles while driving, be for making calls or checking text messages. But hands-free calls are no risk. If we are concerned with people getting upset and distracted we should ban people from thinking as well while on the wheel.
If the phone is in a cradle, but then if you aren't paying attention to the road the police can get you for "without due care" law which already existed and was used for phones originally...
Not true. Anything which detracts from concentration on the road ahead is a risk.
You wouldn't believe the amount of accidents caused by people changing their tapes... Which, of course, brings yet another question...
On the whole, I have zero problem with this law.
The police attitude at the time was: "if the car is moving you should be paying attention to driving alone, and both your hands should be employed for driving only."
I just about might agree if you're travelling on a motorway at 70 mph. But being fined for drinking while crawling along a street seems well excessive.
On principle I don’t have any problems with the new law either. I wouldn’t be too pleased if I were fined for, say, checking a message while I’m doing a stop-start 3mph crawl though.
This new law was mostly brought in to allow on-the-spot fines, and that I am all for. People need to learn that they cannot drive whilst holding a mobile telephone, and if their pockets have to be taught the lesson then so be it.
As for the conversation thing, its not just phones, its talking full stop. But driving whilst on a hands-free unit is the same as talking to passengers, so unless we ban passengers from a car too the law is fine as it stands.
Hand's free kits/speaker phones shouldn't be banned because then we may as well ban radio's.
Aladdin, speed makes no difference in my eyes, I've been in two accidents and have lived with back pain for the last three years by people who were driving under the speed limit but were not paying attention.
Aye, and even on a less serious note my uncles car had £2000 of damage done to it by some tit on a mobile phone driving into the back of him at 5mph cos he wasnt watching the road.
Though if I got done £30 for checking a text message when my car was STATIONARY then Id feel aggrieved.
Not quite sure if sending texts is illegal up here or only talking on the phone though.. both are just as bad.
But all in all, I'm in favor of this kind of law.
I'll never forget the woman I saw in California reading the paper while she drove. :eek2: :crazyeyes :eek:
And it's always fucking buisnessmen or builders, and they always think that for some reason they are the best drivers in the world.
One guy pipped his horn AT ME because I wouldn't let him cut in front of me and he tried to do it anyway. Arsehole had been on his phone for over a mile on a busy main road in the city centre.
it occured to me that the radio, music, loud music and even passengers affect concentration. how long before these are banned from cars?
A copper on the local news made a good point though about passengers- passengers can see what is going on in the road ahead, and if a section requiring concentration comes up then they generally shut up- people on the phone dont know and dont shut up.