Motorists caught driving dangerously while using a mobile phone face being sent to prison under new guidelines.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has issued guidance to courts because of concerns that too many drivers are flouting the ban on hand-held phones.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7153070.stm
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Not just mobiles it seems, also includes mp3 players, satnav etc
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007...l
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It must be a very slow news day.
Drivers have been going to prison for causing accidents whilst using phones for years. Remember the Traffic Cop programme in Hampshire where a wagon driver ploughed into the back of a line of traffic killing somone?
He was messing with the phone whilst in it's cradle and he was sent down.
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Prison - Quite right - cut their hands off as well .
This is one of my pet hates - prison is probably the only thing some of these morons understand.
I still reckon to see at least three drivers using handhelds on my morning commute which is about eight miles.
A car is a car and not a telephone box, why can't people just turn 'em off?
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It's a self fulfilling prophesy. Being unavailable is not acceptable in the modern world. In my occupation I spend a dispropportionate amount of time in the car. As I make up the entire workforce of my small business, it's not as if I can rely on anyone else to deal with my calls.
However, I wish it was the case that making or receiving a call in a car was only allowed if the car is parked. ( or you are a passenger of course ! ).
At least that way it would gradually become acceptable again to be unobtainable for more than ten minutes.
A friend in the same circumstances as me has the right attitude in my view. He leaves his phone on messaging when driving. The message greeting is the key though, he says " sorry I can't take your call, but I will check my messages this evening and I will call you back as soon as possible." He says, that by and large, it works.
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I'm no prude, but one of my pet hates is people using a handheld mobile whilst driving - and it seems directly proportional to the amount of money a car costs - the more expensive the car the more the chances of seeing them on the phone.
Personally I have fitted Parrott kits to both of our cars, and we don't use them that much, but they were well worth the money to me!
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I'm with you on this one TU.
Often noticed prestige car drivers on the mobile, some whilst overtaking on motorways. It's the pure "fingers up/the law does n't apply to me" attitude that gets me going. Perhaps they consider the fine to be too piffling? The odd custodial sentence might just focus their minds. Pity they have to have an accident before they are dealt with seriously.
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I know there is the argument about using the radio being as bad, the kids distract you etc etc but my experience is that mobile phones - with any sort of use - including hands free and fiddling with the sat nav systems distract you more of the time. Because they take up your attention for longer periods of time.
Again I think all they are doing is now enforcing the fact - and it is a fact that using these things is dangerous and people should be penalised in the manner proposed.
Merry Christmas by the way.
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Judging by the number of drivers using mobile phones in my area, the recent early release of so many prisoners to make more room in our prisons would still not be sufficient..:-)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What's for you won't pass you by
Edited by Stuartli on 20/12/2007 at 13:31
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Just shows that they didn't need a specific law for driving while on the phone anyway. The 'without due care and attention' and 'dangerous driving laws' were more than adequate, but this government seems to think that every problem requires a new law, and a new offence to go with it.
Don't get me wrong - I'm entirely against people using phones while driving. I'm also against unnecessary laws.
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government seems to think that every problem requires a new law and a new offence to go with it.
Carphounds and monkeys on this sort of thing, like every government in the recent past. They've lost sight of what is really involved in government. That is because like the other nation states we have been losing autonomy as globalization advances. May as well forget about rational government by people with the country's best interests at heart. All that is in the past. We are just a medium-sized brick in the world democratic (lol) empire whose power centres are as much offshore as in the US.
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I don't like phone using drivers more than anyone else, but they are deemed more dangerous than Al-Quaeda suspects, who are let out.
Edited by Pugugly {P} on 21/12/2007 at 19:51
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>>I don't like phone using drivers more than anyone else, but they are deemed more dangerous than Al-Quaeda suspects, who are let out. <<
That is a question of the constant inconsistencies we see in the UK though with this government. Like all the ordinary folk fined and points on licences for doing 34mph when it is probably very safe - while at the same time telling a christian country they cannot use the word Christmas because it might offend the terrorists that are currently being let out of prison.
You referred to the "fine line" in a snipped bit, no judgement on that, but snipped as erring on the side of caution, the point still being made
Edited by Pugugly {P} on 21/12/2007 at 19:51
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Re-read what you just wrote and try to spot the crucial word which makes the whole comparison nonsensical.
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Don't get me wrong - I'm entirely against people using phones while driving. I'm also against unnecessary laws.
Yup. I'm with you on this one. I don't approve of people using mobiles when driving (hand held or hands free) but this whole thing is a nonsense.
If I had a choice between jailing people for using mobiles, and jailing people for being members of the current government with their hundreds of unnecessary laws, I know which I would choose.
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The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has issued guidance to courts ...
Not wanting to be picky (and the BBC report wasn't clear), but it's charging guidance for the CPS lawyers when they consider what charges are appropriate.
So you won't have to rely only on the courts ...
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I personally don't see a problem with being permitted to use a mobile phone whilst in a slow moving (ie under say 10mph) traffic jam.
Some of the biggest morons that I have encountered using phones when driving are those who try to be safe by stopping in a a totally inappropriate place to use their phones. I do feel that these people are potentially a bigger danger than someone who uses a phone whilst driving but who is still attentive, as clearly those who stop in such places are TOTALLY oblivious to what is happening around them.
Hopefully the pink fluffy dice that was driving the blue Mazda 6 Estate this afternoon and stopped (not pulled over to the side of the road, or even waited for the lay-by a quarter of a mile later) on the road approaching the Arclid traffic lights (heading to the M6 Sandbach junction) is reading this! This was on the exit of a corner on a main A road, no hazard lights and forcing those trying to get past into the oncoming traffic. I really could have smacked him quite happily.
{Any attempt at using that word again, will result in an instant ban. DD}
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 20/12/2007 at 21:04
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Agree with everything you say zm.
You are missing out the morons who just stop without warning in the carriageway without even the excuse that their phones are ringing though. Plenty of those carphounds.
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The government are increasing the punishment for those who do get caught because they do not have the resources out there on the roads looking out for and catching these criminals. Traffic cops have almost disappeared and been replaced with cameras, road humps etc.
If the police were out there in the correct numbers they would be booking people and the existing punishments would suffice, ie if offenders know that they will get caught they cease to offend.
This latest reaction seems to be that they know they can't catch many but those that are caught will be severely punished.
The real solution is to bring back the traffic cops out there catching offenders.
Who caught the Yorkshire Ripper ? Two traffic officers who pulled him up for having a duff tail light.
I am not a copper by the way.
Wenlock
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Wenlock,
good points but a slight correction:
Peter Sutcliffe was caught by Sgt. Bob Ring and a probationary officer that he'd taken out on patrol with him that night. Both were regular plod. They didn't pull him for a faulty tail light, he was questioned because he was parked in a well known vice area. Sgt. Ring called the reg. plates in and found they were false.
I met Bob Ring about a year after the arrest (he was a member of the same golf club as my dad) and he came across as being a traditional copper out of the Dixon of Dock Green mould. A really nice chap.
Kevin...
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this happened to me today,somebody pulled in really sharp to answer the phone "legally"
to zm...............
Edited by bell boy on 20/12/2007 at 21:29
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Thanks for that Kevin. I thought my story sounded too good to be true. Cheers.
Merry Christmas to all.
Wenlock
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the number plates were stolen off a scrapped car in a yard i used to visit
ive always removed the plates prior to crushing after the way sutcliffe got away with this so easily
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Just another smoke screen to make some news and divert attention from the dire state of the country.
Gives the chattering classes something to do.
Sorry back in the cage now.
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>>Some of the biggest morons that I have encountered using phones when driving are those who try to be safe by stopping in a a totally inappropriate place to use their phones.<<
I saw a brilliant example yesterday - I couldn't beleive what I was seeing - a young woman suddenly veers of the road (busy road & 40mph limit) and half parks half on the pavement with her hazards on to answer the phone. A young couple with a pram can't get passed so the male stops askes his partner to hold the pram while he proceeds to walk all over the bonnet and roof of her 57 plate yaris. When challenged he tells her to phone the police and when she has finished explaining her actions then she can tell them about his. Fantastic. I'll like to see that one in a Toyota Yaris advert.
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Whole new meaning to "where's my Cellphone ?" though
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I saw a brilliant example yesterday - I couldn't beleive what I was seeing - a young woman suddenly veers of the road (busy road & 40mph limit) and half parks half on the pavement with her hazards on to answer the phone. A young couple with a pram can't get passed so the male stops askes his partner to hold the pram while he proceeds to walk all over the bonnet and roof of her 57 plate yaris. When challenged he tells her to phone the police and when she has finished explaining her actions then she can tell them about his. Fantastic. I'll like to see that one in a Toyota Yaris advert.
Brilliant!!!!
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I'm not sure whether the announcement was really about any new penalties. What it seemed to be saying was that drivers using hand-held mobiles, in some circumstances, might be charged with dangerous driving, which carries this 2 year jail sentence as a maximum penalty. But surely this is the case already.
I think that a more fitting punishment would to treat using a hand-held mobile the same as drink driving, with an automatic 1 year ban. I would also like to see the use of hands-free mobiles by drivers banned too as they are also claimed to cause distraction. Basically they are merely the lesser or two evils. OK, some people are forced to use them because all their competitors are. But a ban would level the playing field.
I have never used a mobile phone of any kind while driving, except once when stuck in a traffic queue, long before it was made an offence.
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There is no need for a specific law banning the use of mobile phones while driving. The existing laws on careless and dangerous driving cover dangerous mobile phone use. They just need to be enforced. Unfortunately the floodgates have already been opened with hordes of uninsured, unlicensed drivers on the road - or so people keep saying - and lots of other perfectly legal ones who routinely drive in a dangerous and idiotic manner.
This used to be a civilised country that enjoyed the rule of law. It is becoming an over-regulated nursery full of spoiled, anti-social brats.
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Is it really "over-regulation" to blame, or a culture of selfish infantilism? As for the criminal underworld without licenses, they have always been around. But its their aversion to walking nowadays, and the lower real cost of acquiring a car, that allows them to drive without papers:)
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