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Do you really notice an impediment to your driving? I've occasionally told someone in the car to shut up if I'm navigating a complicated junction, but is there really any difference to talking to the passengers?
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What I find, when someone calls me on the in-car BlueTooth, is that a lot of the time, I have no idea what they're going to say, or what the topic of conversation might be. Therefore you sometimes have to concentrate harder than if you are chatting to a passenger, where the conversation ebbs and flows more naturally. Also, if you're talking to a passenger in your car and something "extreme" happens (like someone pulling out in front of you causing you to brake sharply), the passenger will normally stop talking! If someone is at the other end of the phone, they have no idea of the situation, and them continuing to talk whilst you're taking evasive action can be distracting.
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Do you really notice an impediment to your driving?
Lots of people think it makes little difference, but that's one of the problems - The evidence says that there is a very real difference.
I regularly see people driving poorly, and then see the improvement when they finish their call.
Edited by Marlot on 21/02/2009 at 18:16
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but is there really any difference to talking to the passengers?
In my experience, yes - a huge difference.
A passenger has eyes and can see out of the windscreen and will shut up if something is happening ahead (or scream a warning!!).
Someone on the end of a phone can't see, doesn't care and probably just wants their own problem solving.
Like someone above, I use to get technical problems over the excellent handsfree kit, but it was far too distracting (after having driven past one or two motorway junctions I should have come off at) and I used to just grunt "call me back in xx minutes when I can pull up".
Martin
Gave that all in years ago and can only carry a switched off phone now.
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When did it become mandatory to answer a phone? There are other priorities, driving, finishing a "face to face" conversation, completing a shop transaction. Giving a phone priority can be a demonstration of bad manners and even a killer in a car.
Edited by Old Navy on 21/02/2009 at 19:00
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I have a parrot system fitted and I find that functional (I'll be there in 30 minutes) type calls are not distracting, but I wouldn't start a call which required real concentration and would tell an incoming caller expecting a detailed conversation that I'll call back.
The sentence here seems to me very light, given the driver seems to freely admit that she was making long calls involving coomplex flows of information at the time. I thought difference between dangerous and careless driving was the length of time the driver could have known they were driving in a way which posed a danger, ie fleeting or sustained.
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I have this dilemma. I have to spend a lot of time in the car. I also have to spend a lot of time on the phone. Until relatively recently I did both at the same time, albeit legally with the use of handsfree.
I am though, now making a concious effort to limit this. With incoming calls I now always let them go to voicemail. If the caller doesn't leave a message I don't call back. I wait until the phone tells me there is a message and listen to that on the handsfree. If the subject matter of the call is important enough to me I will find somewhere to park and return the call. If I judge it to be less important I will save the message and return the call when convenient.
A subtle change of habit but one I feel more comfortable with.
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....A subtle change of habit but one I feel more comfortable with....
Wise move, Humph.
It would be foolish for anyone to take this case as a green light for hands free phoning.
If similar circumstances arose tomorrow, the CPS would probably charge the same offences and that driver might get a different verdict from the jury.
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I guess the press don't report every comment, but she didn't seem very sorry about it. "My car is my office"..."It's not illegal"...oh, okay then. Maybe the jury heard stuff that wasn't reported, but in my view she got off very, very lightly. Unless there were unusual conditions - windy, wet road, sunlight, mechanics - you don't just lose control of a car like that. Hands free or not, you have to concentrate harder to have a conversation with someone over the 'phone than with a passenger. That is inevitably distracting.
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I do the same as you Humph. Colleagues still surprise me. Company gives us car kits but tells us not to use the phone while driving.
A colleague of mine does not answer his mobile much at all. Does not return calls even if left a message or sent a text. Same goes for emails. Now that's the other extreme!
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I don't know about others, but I don't even like talking to people if I know they are driving. A friend called me last week on his way back from Wales v England. I knew he was driving, I also know he has hands free, but I still wanted to end the conversation quite quickly.
I'd hate to be the one on the other end of the phone if there was an accident.
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Was the 'phone conversation relevant?
People drive carelessly quite well enough even when not on the 'phone.
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daveyp... I am with you on this.
I phone people and realise they are driving and they say its okay. Not by me so I call them back later.
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A friend called me last week on his way back from Wales v England. >>
Surely it wasn't safe to drive anyway? Wasn't he blinded by tears?
; - )
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Surely it wasn't safe to drive anyway? Wasn't he blinded by tears? ; - )
Only of joy, the Welsh so-and-so!
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With incoming calls I now always let them go to voicemail. If the caller doesn't leave a message I don't call back. I wait until the phone tells me there is a message and listen to that on the handsfree. If the subject matter of the call is important enough to me I will find somewhere to park and return the call. If I judge it to be less important I will save the message and return the call when convenient.
andI phone people and realise they are driving and they say its okay. Not by me so I call them back later.
I always do the second option - terminate the call if I know they are driving. For incoming calls, I simply now switch the phone off when I'm driving - as even when you receive a text, you're inclined to read it while driving.
On a long trip, I usually stop every couple of hours - if that's not enough to suit the caller, then tough! My safety and those around me come first.
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There is no hope of the police and CPS taking these offences seriously, when action is so rarely taken against users of hand held mobiles while driving, which has been illegal for almost 6 years. While driving from Carlisle to Cockermouth last Friday, a fast road, I observed an HGV and very large white van in quick succession where the driver was using a hand held mobile. Just beyond, I came across a speed camera van and they must have been 'on the phone' when they passed it. They were clearly unconcerned for obvious reasons. We all see drivers on the phone every day- the police could easily mount operations against this offence, but they don't because of the obsession with speed cameras and revenue.
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Quote from the article: "Before I could end the call I suddenly lost control. It was as if the steering wheel slipped through my hands and I hit the car on the other side of the road."
I can understand the driver being distracted by the phone call and therefore not being sufficiently observant, but how did using a hands free phone cause her to lose control of the car?
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You might as well remove all entertainment systems, sat navs and make cars single occupancy only, thus leaving a driver isolated.
This whole danger thing seems to go along the same route as the ' 10% of accidents are caused by drink drivers " rhetoric which leaves the more dangerous sober 90% causing accidents.
What percentage of drivers taking a mobile call on a car hands free set up are actually involved in RTA's ?. I'll bet its a very small minority but big enough to keep the moral high grounders on their thrones.
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I definitely notice that I cannot carry on a conversation - even a gossipy one - with a passenger, and negotiate a strange city-centre. I am quite inclined to turn the stereo off too if there is a passenger on the grounds that two sets of eyes is much better than one, and instructions from the passenger should not be lost in the radio.
Over the phone it is completely impossible, and the thought of a technical conversation under such circumstances is just a joke.
The M6 north of Preston, however, is a different matter.
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I changed my opinion of hands free kits after trying to have a technical conversation while on a deserted M4 with the cruise control on. I couldn't do it - I couldn't remember what meetings I'd attended and what I'd done for the last week, let alone contribute usefully. Pulled into a service station and all was fine.
I now have nothing but the most chatty social calls, and I try to limit them as well. Not good.
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> You might as well remove all entertainment systems, sat navs ...
Mr G (sorry, X), I am still trying to make sense of the position from which you send your regular salvos to this forum. Here you seem to be sniping at 'moral high-grounders', while other posts from you appear to depend on morality of a different sort.
It is facile to draw conclusions about a 'sober 90%' when you give no data about how many of all drivers had been drinking. If that number were 20% you could argue that drinking before driving made an accident half as likely; if only 4% the general message that drinking is not a good idea would be supported. Fortunately there have been enough lab. studies which show how drinking affects reaction time for your remarks about the 90% to be pointless.
I agree that random statistics quoted out of context can be very misleading, but that is a poor reason to use them to jeer at moral high-grounders - or tree-huggers, IIRC.
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You cant have meaningful technical or business conversations on the phone and drive at the same time. One or the other suffers depending on which you concentrate on.
I only take calls on hands free, and only then to find how how urgent the requirement is to decide weather to pull in somewhere convenient and return the call, or wait until i arrive at my destination.
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I have a hands free on which, like AE above, I take calls but stop to have a complicated conversation.
If I've got the judgement in this case right, it's not so much about hands-free phones as about distraction. You can be distracted by kids, other people, pets, the radio and numerous other things while driving. Many of us fondly remember the Eva Herzigova and Sophie Dahl advertising posters.
If you get distracted, you may become careless, and if you have an accident there's a consequence. I think the judgement is right and, fwiw, the sentence too. A Mercedes running into a Ford Ka is always going to come off better.
I do agree that people still using hand held phones are a menace. I saw someone the other day texting on some sort of large, posh phone thing while joining a three lane A road. Why? Because the chance of getting pulled is statistically insignificant.
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