dpb

using a handsfree mobile phone system in your car - is this correct ??

What are you supposed to do ?

Martin2005

The answer to your question though is, do what we used to do before we had mobiles, drive until you need to stop and call someone? Mind you that doesn't feel like progress does it?


I didn't know this carried a custodial sentence.

Simon C

Not answer the phone? Just a thought.

MJW

I'm far too busy changing the CD's, watching the sat-nav, lighting cigarettes & eating my lunch to answer the phone when I'm driving.

dpb

quite


however these movements are not being broadcast to the world i guess

Snazy

A properly fitted one?

I think the same rules apply to these as your stereo etc.
In a serious accident, if it can be proven you were sufficiantly distracted, its use would be deemed illegal. However regular use would not be punished in this way.

dpb

sufficiantly distracted

What do yo mean Snazy ?


Are you saying properly fitted as in built into the car from the outset ?

Snazy

I mean, if you were to be making a call in which you were becoming emotional, causing you to become distracted from the road, and subsequently crash and hurt someone, the once "legal" fitted handsfree device and the phone itself could be seen as causing the distraction.

In other words, in certain situations you dont have to be physically operating the phone for it to be deemed a distraction.

And no, this could apply to a factory, or retro fit handsfree unit.

Myles

iTrader: (40)

I agree, not a dig at the OP by the way. It really gets to me when I see cars weaving all over the road so that someone can tell their mate "Im on the M40, weaving all over the place, be back soon"

GRRRRRRRRRR

Leslie

Stop when you can and answer it or call back.

Better than being done for it or having a nasty accident!

It would be a great shame to hit an innocent driver wouldn't it?

Les

Simon C

Sarcastic comments aside. There was a bit on the bbc news this morning regarding hands free.

In the event of a crash, the police will check phone records and if on a call at the time of the crash, they usually prosecute, the obvious 1 is driving without due car and attention.

dpb

I reckon it would be put you off your stroke for at least as week Les

the point was, is a simple hands free device such as i have deemed unfit/illegal

LG John

Story link please.

My gut instinct is it's the usual sh*t. Someone dies. Massive over-reaction. Suddenly you can't make a call from your car, period. Nae luck all the businesses that need to keep in contact with their staff via hands free when they are on the move.

One day someone will have cornflakes for breakfast and will be distracted trying to leaver their tongue under the 'mash' that sits on top of their wisdom teeth. They will crash, the case will be proven and they will be jailed for cereal negligence. Eating cornflakes, frosties or any other cereal that sticks to your teeth will be banned if you plan to drive. That's how our society works. Actually, I'll be more specific....that's how YOU the READER want your country to be. There is a big enough sample of society here.....this is how you want things Live with it or lobby for changes to PC-Britain.

MattW

Yup, funny enough there is a spout on the BBC saying that 20mph zones are the next big thing as it has been proved that less people die being hit at 20mph than at 30mph.....no **** sherlock.

Mark my words, in ten years it'll be 10mph zones. Then someone will realise that making cars out of soft things instead of hard things causes less loss of life.

TBH I'm quite shocked no one has banned motorcycles yet.

Bluie

Two things that have always got me about this are:

Is it the fact that you have a phone in your hand and therefore only one on the wheel, so eating, smoking etc is OK

The other is are we distracted because we are having a conversation, the number of cars that I have followed over the years, it would appear women are the worse offenders, that the driver is having a conversation with their front seat passenger, but they insist on constantly looking across at them, whilst the weave around.

Yes it is not ideal to be on the phone, but as in most cases some people are able to do 2 things whilst still in conotrol of the car.

stilover

Hasn't the Met Banned Police Motorcycles? Too dangerous for the Police to ride. Can't chase a suspect on a motorcycle if he ain't wearing a crash helmet, just incase he hurts himself.

My new car comes with a built-in hands-free device. I WILL be using it.

Using a hands-free device, changing CD's or looking at the girl in the short skirt walking alone the footpath are all distractions. It all just depends on the situation as to when you answer the call, change the cd, or perv at the lass.

They'll ban talking to passengers next.

dpb

I think its only born again bikers that are in the firing line sofa

coolangatta

markr1963

And let's not forget mum (sorry ladies, I have never, ever seen a bloke do this) driving looking into the back seat to talk to her kids.

If one has to use a phone in the car whilst on the move use a headset, simple.

This, IMO, is way more dangerous than using hands free mobiles.
Over here, there's plenty of blokes that have to look to their passenger when talking. Can anyone who does this explain to me why they do this?

T.C

In answer to the first poster, it all depends.

Having investigated many road accidents over the years, as with any type of legal issue it all depends on the evidence and the circumstances.

A hands free device is perfectly legal, bluetooth for example, but if a crash occured, the phone records would be checked and depending on what is found it could be used as evidence to support a case of careless driving, or in the case of a fatality death by dangerous driving.

In civil litigation (the area of law I work in) it could have a bearing, but in both criminal and civil it would again depend on a number of factors.

For example, if the call only lasted 3 or 4 seconds it could be deemed as someone having received a call and the caller being told that they are driving and will call them back, or someone making a quick call to say they are running X minutes late.

But on the other hand, if the call lasted for several minutes and the driver was still talking at the time of the crash, then there would be good evidence (not conclusive) that the driver was distracted at the time of the crash and could be used as admissable evidence.

If someone was convicted for death by dangerous driving as a result of them being on the phone, then the answer to the original question could be "Yes, you could go to prison for using a hands free" but the person would be sent down for the section 1 offence (death by dangerous) as opposed to using a mobile phone.

The bigger issue at the moment is the number of people who send and receive text messages whilst they are driving, and there have been a number of documented cases recently where custodial sentances have been dished out to people who have been convicted for death by dangerous as a result of sending text messages whilst driving.

LG John

Is it not the case that talking on a hands free or to a passenger is circumstantial. Surely, it would have to be proven the the exacting nature of the conversation was a distraction.

<sigh> That said, I know how the courts work. Add 1+4, get 8.....but convict anyway cause it's good for the stats and everyone is guilty until they can prove their innocence.

StickyMicky

The answer, is called an answer phone.

LG John

This thread absolutely proves my point and confirms why, as a society, humans are ultimately self-defeating.

I've been on scoobynet since around 2002. If I posted back then asking if it's ok to drive and talk on your mobile phone the general response would be, "yeah, sure?! Why the hell not?"

Then somebody, somewhere, died.

Legislation came out making it illegal to talk on your phone and drive without a hands free system.

If I posted up a year or so ago asking if it's ok to use your bluetooth system the general response would be, "well, you'll look like a total ****....but, yeah, sure"

Then somebody, somewhere, died.

So today, I'm asking if it's ok to have cornflakes and drive without re-brushing your teeth. Go, go, go.

You all sicken me fwiw. Get a fvcking grip, people die, accidents will always happen. What's the point of living if our only concern is making sure nobody ever dies or gets hurt?

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

If some tw*t on a mobile drives into someone and kills them because they had 70% of their concentration on their conversation, that is not an accident. An accident implies no-one was at fault.


M

LG John

With infinite information (i.e. god view) blame could be found for everything that happens in the world. What I love about this is I'll bet you £25 you have, at some point in your life, talked on a mobile phone whilst driving. I bet you thought nothing of it (rightly so IMHO). However, because somebody, somewhere died.....now it's unacceptable to you. Lol.

I want you to think really, really hard about what I'm going to say next:

The world and nature is chaotic. Why do humans strive to exercise control over all of it?




In short, sh*t happens. Always will, no matter how hard do-gooders such as yourself try to control things. Eventually, it'll be illegal to drive and cars will drive themselves. Then one day one of them will crash and it'll be proven that the engineer who worked on the software had 3 coffees one morning when he wrote some crucial code - the cause of the crash. Next they will ban excessive stimulant taking in an attempt to exercise even greater control over our environment.

Take a trip to the zoo and look at the chimp enclosure. That's us. We aren't that much more intelligent and we are just as fragile.

<rant over>

scoobymad555

iTrader: (1)

Reckon it's a load of rubbish to be honest and yet another excuse for the bib to bump up stats and revenue. No different to speed cameras. In principle the idea is good but in reality, it's taken advantage of by idiot officers that are too dense to use their common sense or be doing something more useful and constructive with their time.

Granted I'm perhaps a little biased since I picked up a fine and three points recently for use of a mobile whilst driving but it's a pretty good case in question really : I was stationary in a traffic jam and a copper saw me turning my phone on. All of a sudden I'm a criminal and am putting peoples lives at risk because I'm using a phone whilst driving .... except I wasn't even bl00dy moving! Even had to listen to the lecture about the "really nasty accidents" the officer had seen in his time ..... this was from a seasoned veteran who looked barely old enough to even have a driving license. Until that event, I'd held a clean license for over 10 years and have never had an accident due to using a mobile phone. I also quite happily used a phone same as everyone else whilst driving before it became illegal too.

The majority of accidents I've seen over the years are usually down to people being f**kin idiots that frankly shouldn't have driving licenses in the first place. Simple fact of it is that these people will always find a way to **** things up - never underestimate the abilities of an idiot to truly make a mess of something. He11, I've even seen one driver (female in this instance) that managed somehow (god only knows how) to get on and drive the WRONG way round the north circular and was busy flashing her lights, beeping her horn and shouting at all the people driving at her! Makes no difference whether using a phone is illegal or not, people like her will STILL f**k up everybody elses day somehow!

Are there actually even any ACCURATE statistics showing a massive fall in road accidents since making it illegal?

mj

What a load of old crap.

The fact is, there are some people on this planet that have been mistakenly allowed to drive ( women ) and it takes 99.9% of thier concentraction to do so, albeit still badly. There is also about 2% of the male population ( mostly gays & ethnics ) that fall into the same category. Sadly, we are all ( us drivers ) tarred with the same brush.

Your average bloke can do several things whilst driving, including operating ICE, in car navigation, if you are a chav or oldie that cannot afford or abide satnav, then reading an atlas. There is also eating pastry based snacks, drinking, and if required, ************, or if lucky with a passenger, heavy petting.

I agree that sending texts while driving *may* take your eye off the ball, but pressing the steering wheel answer button on your factory fitted hands free bluetooth kit is not a distraction in my opinion.

LG John

MJ, your post WILL be ripped to pieces. So I'll get in there first and then work to reinforce your point.

Firstly you are wrong about men being able to multi-task more effectively than women. Women are far better at doing two things at once. That's just the way their brains are wired. In nature they were required to hold conversation to form social groups, pick berries or maintain the cave whilst remaining vigilant for predators.

Men, on the other hand, hunt. This requires them to have excellent spatial awareness and unwavering focus on the task at hand.

However, you are still right. You see, driving is utterly easy to so many men that they can drive to a high level of competence automatically without having to think about it. Therefore, when they change the ipod/cd they are actually only required to think about the one thing. The driving takes care of itself.

I also agree with your key point. We shouldn't be targetting specific 'activities' whilst driving or even specific speed thresholds. Whilst harder to qualify, the real problem on our roads is poor judgment and downright stupidity. I assure you that I could drive 100 miles talking on a non-hands free mobile and be less of a crash risk than 80% of women. You know the sort....drive 10ft from the car in front at 70mph because they 'aren't speeding'. Totally ignoring the fact they can't possible stop in time, etc.

mj

SB...

mj

But thanks for the backup.......