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Thanks TJ
Really Zokes there's no need to be so rude and disparaging. I am not 6ft 4', I'm only 6ft and I'm not a power lifter but I did spend 15 years training with a gentleman who also used to teach CQC Speztnas, FSB, SAS and Mossad so I learnt a few tricks. Mostly I learnt to be humble but confident.
I'm only 6ft
Short arse 😉
Oh dear.... from phones to part time secret agent in two tiny steps...
Good News! I'm off for a ride. Play nicely now 🙂
are much less aware of what’s happening on the road around them
fail to see road signs
fail to maintain proper lane position and steady speed
are more likely to 'tailgate' the vehicle in front
react more slowly, take longer to brake and longer to stop
are more likely to enter unsafe gaps in traffic
feel more stressed and frustrated.
Sounds like my mother in law. God knows what would happen if she answered the phone as well.
You'd get grief for doing something wrong?
I hate driving in traffic when you can see the person in the mirror behind is clearly texting and not concentrating. I have yet to get out of the car and remonstrate (following EL's line of thought) but always leave a much bigger gap in front just in case I have to react.
If only these people realised that mobiles are not only dangerous when driving but also the tobacco of our generation....exists swiftly for a ride 😉
Crawling through tow centre traffic on Friday there was an Asian chap in a blinged 5 series with a phone to each ear!
Really Zokes there's no need to be so rude and disparaging.
Sorry - I guess you probably use contacts instead of those glasses these days 😉
IMHO 3 points and a £60 fine are not enough of a consequence. I'd be looking at short-term bans of say a month for the first offence escalating through 3 and 6 before the final 12. I would also look at confiscation of the phone and number too, again for the same period as the ban.
I was behind a young girl who was texting while driving up the A605. She crossed over the white line several times and I beep my horn at one point as she was just not paying any attention. A bit further up the road she started playing with her phone again, a lorry was coming the other direction I started to slow up and honked my horn and the lorry driver slammed his brakes on honking his horn as she crossed the centre line and she just managed to swerve back over at the last minute just missing the lorry.
An ex work colleagues brother ended up in a wheel chair after a lorry hit him while he was on his bike. The lorry driver admitted in court he reached over for his mobile 🙁
The Swedish view seems correct...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/12/sweden_not_banning_mobiles_in_cars/
(crazy Swedes!)
I would also look at confiscation of the phone and number too, again for the same period as the ban.
I think this would be the better thing - that really will make people think. Loss of work's number = loss of customers = loss of job. Loss of own number = loss of social life.
They would just go out and buy a new mobile.
They would just go out and buy a new mobile
And have to go through the palava of changing numbers. Don't know about you but if I had to change my number there would be quite a bit of collateral work as a result.
Your no.s aren't backed up?
Boils my pi$$ too. The amount of people on the phone seems to be getting worse and where they choose to do it gets stupider.
One of these days I am going to write down the reg and company of company vehicles and contact them. The law on not smoking in company vehicles seems to be forgotten now too.
I agree with handsfree being pretty much as bad as holding the phone. Talking to people in the car can be distracting but they are there with you which lowers the concentration needed as they can repeat/speak louder in response to noises around you, shut up if needed (hopefully) and are a lot clearer than someone on a speaker. I also agree with a lot of companies banning handsfree as well - just let people who REALLY need it use it and give them the best you can get. The reason they ban it is legal though - if the person kills someone when on the handsfree the bosses could get in trouble so they are really mainly protecting their own backs.
What really winds me up is people that pull away in car parks either on the phone or smoking and trying to navigate tight corners with a phone or cigarette in one hand. Why not finish what you are doing and then drive off? Idiots.
Shoot the people who drive whilst on their phone i say!
I just ****ing hate driving, I have about 100 calls a day and when I'm out and about in the van between sites it's just constantly ringing, I get to site the spend 10 freeking minutes catching up before I even get out of the van. I don't condone the use of phones in the car but when your job is split between driving and speaking to people it's a nightmare. Life was so much easier before bloody mobile phones, used to get given a phone card from work and was asked to call in once or twice a week. Maybe I should just take my mums example and only switch the thing on when I want to call someone.
Isn't it something like using your phone while driving is equivalent to being over drink drive limit a few times? In terms of concentration I believe.
So I question why it doesn't carry the same penalty - maybe people would get it into their thick skulls it's dangerous.
It's not even one of those selfish acts that really, it doesn't affect anyone else. If they veer onto the other side of the road and wipe out my family because they couldn't wait 10 minutes to text their boyfriend, that's a bit wrong.
Also a lot of people think it's acceptable to text when in a queue of traffic. Why? For me this is when concentration is needed the most, probably, lots of stopping and starting...
I just **** hate driving, I have about 100 calls a day and when I'm out and about in the van between sites it's just constantly ringing, I get to site the spend 10 freeking minutes catching up before I even get out of the van. I don't condone the use of phones in the car but when your job is split between driving and speaking to people it's a nightmare. Life was so much easier before bloody mobile phones, used to get given a phone card from work and was asked to call in once or twice a week. Maybe I should just take my mums example and only switch the thing on when I want to call someone.
Sorry but have you not heard of handsfree?
I once followed someone through a tunnel, could see she was texting as her head kept bobbing down. Came through other side of tunnel and there was a queue just as it split to three lanes. I pulled up and gave her some abuse through the window. She dropped the phone pretty sharpish then. Silly cow.
how is conversing on the phone different to chatting in the car/bickering kids/loud music?
Your no.s aren't backed up?
Yours might be, but all your mates / colleagues / clients have your old number. You'd be paying for two contracts etc...
Far more pain than 60 quid and 3 points IMO
. Driving performance under the influence of alcohol was significantly worse than normal driving, yet better than driving while using a phone.
[i]Isn't it something like using your phone while driving is equivalent to being over drink drive limit a few times? In terms of concentration I believe[/i]
Wouldn't know, never driven when over the limit - have you, or are you just guessing and/or making up facts?
Crawling through tow centre traffic on Friday there was an Asian chap in a blinged 5 series with a phone to each ear!
Drove past an Asian woman with a hands free kit the other day. She had the phone tucked into her headscarf.
I won't use the phone when in the car, except to check a text (and therefore stop my phone bleeping all the time) if I'm stopped at traffic lights.
One of my friends (who perhaps isn't the best driver anyway), doesn't seem to care and will happily text while driving. If he does it when I'm in the car with him I tell him not too, and I make my objections known if he ever texts me while he's driving (and it's obvious he has done so - i.e. "I'll be there in 15 minutes, I'm just getting off the motorway").
To me whether or not other things are just as bad, and yes lots of things are, using a phone is illegal and the other things aren't. I won't do lots of the other things either because I like to consider myself reasonably safe but driving whilst using a phone is illegal and therefore whether or not you "can" do it shouldn't make a difference.
Isn't it [b]something like[/b] using your phone while driving is [b]equivalent to being over drink drive limit a few times?[/b] In terms of concentration I believe
No, it's not.
It's nothing like that.
then again
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1885775.stm
http://www.directline.com/about_us/news_27022009.htm
equivalent to being over drink drive limit [b]a few times[/b]
Not according to either of those articles no..
One of my work colleagues is an appalling driver. speeds all the time and tailgates whilst using her phone.
The laws of averages caught up with her last week though when she got 6 points within 3 days. 47 in a 30 followed later by getting done for using her phone whilst speeding on the motorway.
Only the fact it wasn't traffic that stopped her on the motorway let her escape without another speeding charge as well.
Strangely, as yet, her driving hasn't changed. I predict a ban in the next couple of years.
Obviously 3 pts isn't enough of a deterrent. Maybe 6 pts meaning drivers caught once would be one step away from a ban would work.
there's some published stuff suggestng that hands-free is pretty much as dangerous as hand-held - supposedly it's the concentration that's lost rather than ability to physically control the cartbh I'm still waiting for them to ban manual cars, its in the same vein. And I go back to the fact that there are an awful lot of drivers who really are just crap.
Different thing, it the concentration of holding a conversation with someone who is not with you
I'd be interested to hear how they suggest passengers, particularly children, come up score-wise on that test though - and there's no way they'd ban that.
A distraction (especially kid) but apparently its the way we interact with people on the phone is very different to if they are in the car and the way the people on the other end of the phone talk to the driver is different.
It is concluded that driving behaviour is impaired more during a phone conversation than by having a blood alcohol level at the UK legal limit (80mg / 100ml).
Wouldn't know, never driven when over the limit - have you, or are you just guessing and/or making up facts?
Neither, I just use my eyes and read something......
[quote=faz083]Isn't it something like using your phone while driving is [b]equivalent to being over drink drive limit a few times?[/b]
[quote=A Study]It is concluded that driving behaviour is impaired more during a phone conversation than by having a blood alcohol level [b]at the UK legal limit[/b] (80mg / 100ml).
[quote=faz083]....I just use my eyes and read something......
.
So did you deliberately Embelish what the study actually concluded then ?
Or did you go looking for it to back a statement you had already made, and that was the closest thing you could find maybe.
So did you deliberately Embelish what the study actually concluded then ?Or did you go looking for it to back a statement you had already made, and that was the closest thing you could find maybe.
It doesn't really matter does it. The executive summary clearly shows that driving performance is significantly imparied while trying to have a mobile phone conversation; in fact it's worse than being at the legal limit.
Ah ok.
So not like being "a few times" over the legal limit then.
Glad we cleared that up..
[img] 
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Not pedantic at all.
To say that having a conversation while driving is the same as driving [b] a few times[/b] over the drink drive limit is utter bollx.
It's not in the slightest bit pedantic to point that out.
Shame really because that pic would have been funny if you had saved for a time when it was relevant 😉
never mind driving whilst using the phone, what about the idiots that READ while driving?
Friday afternoon 4.30pm ish, I was heading home up the M1 near Leeds. Red MX5 passes me & I glance across to see a multi-page A4 document on the steering wheel, driver looking down not ahead. so I pressed my horn, he looked around & carried on past me. about a mile later he'd slowed down so I then passed him. STILL reading. at 65 in the middle lane of the M1. d***head.
That Direct Line link is interesting. And scary because so few drivers are aware of the findings...
I think cars have had so many safety features (for the occupants at least) built in now, that drivers are losing the feeling of vulnerability and their ability to judge the risk they are putting themselves and others under. I think very few of the drivers who cut me up on my 30mile ride this morning had any real intention or understanding they were putting me at risk...
I can't remember the source but someone worked out we have a level of risk we're comfortable with, and if we feel safe, we change our behaviour to take ourselves back to that level of risk. Hence people driving like idiots now cars are so much safer e.g. traction control and ABS...
We largely eradicated drink driving, which was widespread when I was a kid, partly through properly enforcing the law, sustained government communications, and making it socially unacceptable. Time to do this again, but with mobile phone use and general inconsiderate/dangerous driving
Crazy Belgians - good idea though...
i know a company i used to work for has banned hands free and using a phone whilst driving is gross misconduct, obviously you have to be caught though.
This might focus a few minds of people who use their phones whilst driving. Not getting insurance is potentially a major issue for most folk today (apart from those who don't care about insurance!)
Crazy Belgians - good idea though...
No seatbelt law in WaloonLand?
From the comments under that Metro article:
[i]What happens if two hearing impaired people are in a car "talking" to each other? Does using sign language which involves a lot of hand usage equate to breaking the law as at soem stage neither hand could be on the steering wheel[/i]
😆
Why can't people just turn the bloody things off, in most cases you don't have to be contactable every minute of the day
I did have some chav on a 'ammaco' bso ride of the footpath the other week who was using his phone at night with no lights on the bike and wearing some dark coloured shell suit thing, I missed him by about a foot. He then proceeded to square up to me in front of the car, although his attitude did change somewhat when I got out and he realised I was about 2ft taller than him and was in the mood for some polite re-education lol