Safe Speed Forums

I have to say on this occasion I don't find myself agreeing with Paul (normally I do). Having been the "victim" of phoner drivers on several occasions and nearly been run off the road by some woman in a Chelsea Tractor (Range Rover type thing) who was more interested in the phone conversation than the person passing her in the lane to her right on that stretch of motorway I agree entirely that it should be made a specific offence...

I've been the victim of such driving plenty of times, most of the time the driver is not on a mobile, sometimes they are.

Perhaps use of a mobile phone could be made into an aggravating factor that increases the penalties, same as tiredness now is, if there is an accident that was your fault?

I see the mobile phone law as if it were (say) a ban on knives, but not skewers or swords.

It'll cause a lot of trouble for chefs, but won't actually stop anyone from being stabbed.

I'd suggest that nice clear well enforced laws on stabbing would hit the target better.

And in the case of mobile phones, the thing we all want to stop is CARELESS DRIVING. But we already had a pefectly good law about that.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Paul: Putting it that way I can see exactly where you're coming from. And I do agree that the existing DWDC&A laws were adequate.

On the other hand, perhaps making driving with a handheld mobile a specific offence will ram the particular point home to people. And it might encourage vehicle and phone handset manufacturers to fit Bluetooth as standard, not as some exotic optional extra. Swings & roundabouts I guess.

Ignoring the distraction effect of the actual conversation for a moment, the fact is that driving with one hand on the wheel and one clamped to your ear is dangerous, far more so than talking on a hands-free kit would be. At least then you can keep both hands on the wheel (and not have no hands on the wheel when changing gear) where they should be.

I fitted a hands-free kit into my first car within about 3 weeks of getting it (a Nokia CARK91 with a home-brew adaptor that linked it into the in-car audio system for better sound quality). Subesquent cars have had a Bluetooth system fitted, the latest car has a CD head unit with built-in Bluetooth which lets me browse the phone book and view caller ID on its display - that way I can even decide whether or not to take the call based on the caller ID. Sound quality is generally very good. But I still won't have a long chat when on hands-free.

The problem is that such a law only kicks in after someone has been stabbed. Which is little consolation to the victim.


We also had a perfectly good law that said if you tested over the limit for alcohol after an accident then you got a higher penalty than you would have got for the same accident when sober.

Unfortuneately huge numbers of drivers thought that, even when drunk, their driving was so good they would never be involved in an accident. So that law didn't work as a preventive measure. Hence the current law which provides for serious penalties for drink driving even in the absence of an accident. Similar thinking lies behind the law on mobiles.



Please note - I am not saying that I am for, or against, the current situation just trying to reflect the reasoning behind it.

I'm not sure this is essentially true. Are you suggesting that one-handed driving is always more dangerous than having both hands clamped to the wheel at all time? I am sure that the problem has its roots more in prioritising other tasks over driving, whilst driving. By this I mean, you could be picking your nose whilst driving perfectly safely with one hand, but could stop in an instant if you needed the other hand for the driving task, however people on mobile phones are less likely to be willing to drop the phone, or even interrupt the conversation in order to prioritise more essential driving-related uses for their other hand.

I have seen absolutely no evidence for that anywhere. People keep saying it, but that doesn't make it true.

I think I do understand why people keep saying it... The driving process is largely subconscious so it is hidden and mysterious. Yet the potential danger is incredible - we can crash at any time.

So we have invented a load of 'do's and 'don't's in the hope that we can reduce it to something simple as a sort of comfort blanket.

With drivers, it's what they are doing with their eyes and their brain that matters, not what they are doing with their hands and feet.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Oh well, why have a murder law then?

Seriously I do understand the argument, and I'm all for prevention. However, I'm pretty sure the new mobile phone law will cost lives by diverting resources from more important causes of crashes.



With drunks the danger is clear - 1% of drivers are drunk, yet 20% of serious crashes involve drunks. This over-representation is good evidence of general danger.

With phones, 2.5% of drivers are on the phone yet only 0.4% of fatal crashes involve any driver on the phone. This under-representation is good (not perfect) evidence of general safety.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Yeah, but isn't that a bit like saying - given the number of people who drive too close, there are very few crashes as a result, therefore, driving too close to the vehicle in front is not very dangerous?

We simply get away with many potentially dangerous activities.



I would think that using a phone most definitely uses eyes and brain. Especially texting and making calls.

_________________
It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

As a bit of an aside; I have been wondering about this for a while, how well is 'tailgating' represented in the crash stats? Does anyone know? Paul?

We do know that 'shunts' are over 30% of motorway crashes. I suspect that tailgating is significantly over-represented in the crash stats, but it's hard to be sure because inattention will give rise to a shunt without tailgating.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Yes we do, but the road safety system is so large that every case of luck is played out daily. We're not tossing one coin, where the out come is totally unpredictable, we're tossing millions of coins and we know for sure that about half are going to be heads and about half are going to be tails. Luck no longer comes into it because every case of luck is represented.

An individual might get away with driving like a nutter for a lifetime, but spread across a population of tens of thousands of nutters their crash risk becomes predictable.



Yes it does - but in this hand held and hands free are equal.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I agree. Of course, there are situations where it is dangerous, for example if you are approaching a small roundabout in 4th gear and stay on the phone while you change down, negotiate the roundabout and change back up again.

But, the stereotypical phoner-driver is a sales rep in the outside lane of the motorway in a BMW which probably has an automatic gearbox anyway, plus the steering in those things is so light that really you only need one finger to control them (though I agree that actually being able to grip the wheel is safer than just pushing it)

There are plenty of things people do with their free hand in a long distance motorway situation (no, not that one!), eating, drinking, picking of nose etc. so why is the phone singled out

I think the loss of control from one hand is a different issue to the loss of concentration due to the call.

Except for a mechanical failure (for e.g.) the loss of control is mainly going to occur because the loss of attention creates a hazardous situation beyond the drivers ability to handle with one hand.

_________________
Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Yes, but wouldn't it be fair to suggest that we dramatically shorten our odds if we compound several "unsafe" activities.

So - driving too close and then making a phone call might more than double the risk of a crash.

_________________
It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

Sounds reasonable - but I think mostly we take our risks one at a time. I'd more expect a driver receiving a phone call to slow down and drop back than suddenly speed up and press on. It might be two risks to an observer, but drivers are managing situational risk.

I'm guessing that this is the exact effect that leads to mobile phone driving being under-represented in the crash stats.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

What you describe is someone taking a rational decision about the current situation and managing the risks. What I see is a lot of is drivers pulling out of junctions and negotiating roundabouts with phones clamped to their ears.

_________________
Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

I rather suspect that these are the ones who drive like tits ragardless of their telephonic situation! Willingly mingling your risks (negotiating busy junction + phone for example) is the mark of a bad driver, whether or not the phone is one of them.

From Paul's statistics, however, it would not seem that 'bad drivers' are the only ones phoning and driving, so supposedly the others chose to do their phoning in situations of lower risk.

OK, but what if the driver doesn't perceive something as a risk? Tailgating isn't seen as a risk by many (I assume!) and probably, neither is making a phone call.

Do you think a subconscious over-ride kicks in if we start to compound risky activities?

_________________
It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

One possible explanation that would square the circle here is that most of the real world mobile phone risks come from a small percentage of the drivers. If say, 90% of drivers using mobiles had no special risk but 10% of drivers had a risk up by x5, then we could have crash stats as they are AND, because your attention is drawn to risky behaviours, an explanation for your observations.

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety