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Slo76 my thoughts exactly.
Driving at the UK limit poses a small risk. Using a phone, handheld or hands free is similar.
If the problem is that big pass a law to allow random tests and give the police the cash to get more traffic cops on the street
But that would cost money. Kneejerk solutions and bewvlaws for everything are easier. Enforce the laws we have.
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I think that the alcohol limits are the same here in France as in Scotland ie 0.5
I was surprised when I looked up the driving alcohol limits in Europe to find out that the UK and Malta are the highest at 0.8.
Here in France drink driving is a big big problem, so big that the government won't admit that it's a big problem, preferring to concentrate on speeding and massive fines and investing millions in technology to catch speeders - because it's very profitable, to the tune of about a billion euro the last figures I saw. Nicking drunk drivers isn't profitable, very little effort is put into it.
A recent profitable offence is the phone scam - you now can get nicked for using your mobile phone when parked in a parking area with your engine switched off.
But a few well publicised blitz weeks are carried out, the flics very publicly stake out a roundabout and breath test all the drivers, check all the documents, and make sure that the photographer from the local paper is there.
They usually catch a few drunks. the odd one or two without insurance or vehicle test, and vanloads of unregistered workers working for the black economy.
The serious drinkers meanwhile, have been warned on their mobiles and are away across country on the unclassified back roads!
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Indeed - like with using a mobile as you describe, the government haven't as yet caught up with their use as sat-navs either, meaning using them as such in the same manner as a built-in one can be illegal. You have to wonder how all these Civil Servants working in the Home Office, as well as the politicians supposedly guiding policy can justify their existance and vat salaries/perks, given how poor a job they often do in keeping up with the times and proposing sensible, cost effective policies for the betterment of all that are fair and just.
No different to most of government and politicians I suppose, just variations on a them with a few decent exceptions. Maybe rather than just debating such issues on forums such as this, we need to get more invloved with such matters so that any good ideas we and others come up with make it into law.
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Indeed - like with using a mobile as you describe, the government haven't as yet caught up with their use as sat-navs either, meaning using them as such in the same manner as a built-in one can be illegal. You have to wonder how all these Civil Servants working in the Home Office, as well as the politicians supposedly guiding policy can justify their existance and vat salaries/perks,
First of all driving offences are the responsibility of the Department for Transport not the Home Office. Since it lost prisons to Justice ten years ago the Home Office is mostly about borders and internal security. While it retains policy and funding for the Police operational decisions rest with Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commisioners. And as somebody who's son is just about to start work in the Home Office in a graduate post on around £20k I'm going to call your comment about pay/perks for the ignorant twaddle it is. The only possible perk is the 'promise' of a pension in about 43 years time. The experience of my own colleagues who saw their pension age dragged further and further over the horizon suggests that's an empty promise.
As to being nicked for using a phone's sat nav in same manner as a built in one being ilegal you're plain wrong, though to be fair it's a myth the popular press have repeatedly propogated.
It's an offence to use a phone while holding it in your hand. If it's in a cradle on a heater vent or the windscreen you're fine, so far as mobile specific legislation is concerned no offence is committed. You could still be nicked for not being in full control or careless driving but same charge is available for drivers messing with integral satnav, touch screen infotainment or heating controls and even something as mundane as swigging water from a bottle.
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Respectfully, I disagree, Bromptonaut, and frankly why whould civil servants get their pensions earlier than anyone else. I think its nit-picking about the 'source' of the laws - one government dept is as bad as the next in my view, and they keep splitting them up and joinging them together again every few years. Many of the laws on the statute book and the guidance as to how Police officers are to enforce them surely come through the Home Office (its not as though traffic police are controlled by the DoT).
How many laws and rules have come from the HO for the police that have increased bureaucracy, form filling etc and taken officers away from front-line duties, yet we mostly hear about 'lack of funds' rather than a common-sense (rather than the increasingly politically-correct, SJW narritive and thought police) approach than goes after REAL crime and criminals and not people who 'offend' someone (quite often mildly and no more than I may, in your eyes, be doing now by having a difference of opinion with yourself). What about all the untold £Ms wasted politically-motivated 'investigations (more like whichunts to me) into blindingly obvious (to most of us) false accusations by fantasists and worse of right-of centre political figures by top police officers and above?
At most, in my view, my error was not including the DoT and DoJ in with them - I've worked alongside them in my career as an engineer and find these depts are not well run, not as bad as the NHS or MoD, but not good. Bringing your son's imminent employment into this is ridiculous, in my view, epsecially as its widely known that Civil Servants get far more non-pay perks (holiday days, sick days [which many use as extra holidays, especially in the NHS], non-contributory pensions [perhaps less so than there used to be], early pensionable age compared to the private sector [again, perhaps reducing now)]) - perhaps I should've said long-standing staff.
One of the inconsistencies that the media recently raised was the example of a person who was using their phone (legally) as a satnav in the right place, but the cradle it was sitting in (and thus the phone) fell out when they were driving. They pulled over, put the car in neutral and applied the handbrake, and picked up the phone and cradle to re-attach it to the centre console vent. They were spotted by the police and were nicked for doing so. Apparently, doing so whilst the car is 'on' is an offence, which, in these circumstances (I can fully understand if the car's in gear and they are holding it on the clutch and brake pedals) is ridiculous - how often do we see police officers in their cars doing exactly the same and seemingly getting away with it. I've also seen police officers (the driver) on TV documentaries fiddling with buttons on the centre console (thus taking their vision away from the road).
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Bringing your son's imminent employment into this is ridiculous, in my view, epsecially as its widely known that Civil Servants get far more non-pay perks (holiday days, sick days [which many use as extra holidays, especially in the NHS], non-contributory pensions [perhaps less so than there used to be], early pensionable age compared to the private sector [again, perhaps reducing now)]) - perhaps I should've said long-standing staff.
With respect you're just repeating the same stuff as before. What do you mean by widely known non pay perks? Yes 25 or 30 days paid leave is quite good and so is three months sick at full pay. But they don't help you raise a mortgage. Occuaptional Pensions at 60 were widespread amongst good employers right up until the end of the nineties when the demographic timebomb, lower investment yields and tax raids on pension funds from both political stripes cut them short.
And please save us from the old saw about using sick leave to top up annual. I was a Civil Servant from 1978 until 2013. On arriving at my first posting I was warned about using the concession to take short term sick leave without a doctors note for extra days off. I never, ever, met anyone who got away with that - it was too tightly monitored to even think about taking a chance.
You've moved the goalposts on using a phone for satnav. It's legal if it's in a cradle. Some supposed media report of an egregious prosecution after a mishap doesn't change that.
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Driving at the UK limit poses a small risk. Using a phone, handheld or hands free is similar.
Careful, they'll get you for daring to voice that opinion, mobile phone users are vilified here.
Two weeks ago, driving my lorry on the 4 lane section of M4 between M5 and M32 Bristol a fully marked BMW X5 pulled out from behind me, and slowed down at the exact point so he could closely examine me in the drivers mirror, now i wasn't driving erratically nor tailgating nor speeding nor had i pulled out on anyone so no reason to suspect i was doing anything but driving normally, this bod was clearly looking for mobile phone or similar criminal activity, maybe a banned kitkat munch, to tick the particular fad nick box of the day.
He looked a miserable blighter and one could imagine the condescending talking to had i been the dastardly criminal our hero was hoping for.
Meanwhile all sorts of tailgating pushing in swerving dangerous lane changes, yes and the ocassional hand held mobile use, by others, resumed all around once the BMW was out of view.
As for drink driving, its not those who stick to the limits whatever they may be, it's those who lose all sense when they've had a skinful who are the real problem, and no one is talking about the other elephant in the room, the increasing use of that foul drug cannabis, which isn't the harmless recreational weed progressives and those who wish to make money from legitimate sales (and tax it) would have you believe.
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