Safe Speed Forums

This one's hard to beat - seen this afternoon. Female driving large white van down the road. Right hand holding mobile phone to left ear, left hand holding iced lolly with left forearm flat on the top of the steering wheel. Can anyone beat that?

Of course, this new style of driving must be quite safe because you don't mention getting flashed by the Gatso at the end of the street - so it wasn't speeding and endangering all of the rest of us, eh?

This country's batchy

Best one I ever saw was in a factory where I used to work.

I was walking down the main factory road when a "Benford" dumper truck came the other way. This is the type with a forward facing tipper where the driver sits at the back next to the engine, for those unfamiliar.

Well all I could see as it approached was that this thing had a six foot high stack of scaffold planks stacked transversely across the top of the "dumper" part, with someone's head just visible above it.

My assumption was that the driver had his mate stood up next to him to see over the load, ready to warn him if he needed to stop.

Wrong. As it passed by me I saw that there was but one driver, who was balanced on one foot on top of the engine compartment, and using the other foot to steer. In his hand he had an 8 foot length of 3"x2" which he was using to press the accelerator pedal down with so that the thing would go!

Still, at least he wasn't speeding!

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

I believe that 'being in control' is more a mental condition than a physical one. I'm worried that we tend to measure how in control a driver might be by what he's doing with his hands.

Of course certain uses of the hands might well indicate that the mind is elsewhere. And clearly JT's wild example would indcate a seriously risky approach to controlling a vehicle. But it's mind, mind, mind, not hands, hands, hands.

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

A year or two back my right knee gave way at work. To get home I had to adopt a very difficult posture. I could only get my knee comfy by having my right lower leg encroaching in the left part of the footwell.

My walking stick sat across my lap to work the throttle with my left hand

My left foot covered the brake and was used solely on the brake - I dared not swing that foot sideways to try to use the throttle - it would have hurt my knee too much.

This left my right hand for steering - and the 4WS Accord needed only one grab for 95% or more manouevres - only just a turn and a half lock to lock.

Well - first couple of take offs I spun wheels. First couple of gentle stops were very viscious. After that... I doubt without looking in anyone could tell it was not being controlled normally. Ok - had an emergency arisen life may have been difficult - to override the lizard brain from crucifying my knee, but it didn't.

I felt - and was - in control. I was ultra-cautious - in "chauffeur" mode if you like - but that was to minimise any need for lizard brain stuff, not because I was concerned that my makeshift arrangement couldn't cope.

As Paul says - mind is control, not hands. Hands are just an extension of the mind in this instance.

How about having a mobile phone wedged between shoulder and ear, both hands occupied rolling a cigarette, using knees to keep the steering wheel straight, and all this while on the motorway

If you think the above scenario is made up, then come & meet my father in law

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Bah, no mention of reading the A-Z, not a real white van person then.

Oh no.......
White van woman........does this prove Darwin is right?

Must be natural selection at work. Its the only explanation.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Oh if only you knew....

Everyday in this job you wake up thinking you've seen every possible example of stupidity on the roads. And most days you're proved wrong!!

Best one ever ? Undoubtedly a woman driving along actually changing a baby's nappy while baby was on her lap....even I had to look twice before I actually believed it.

"Taking dictation" is quite common (i.e. on the phone and writing something down whilst driving) as is seeing people reach into the back to get papers, comfort baby, etc...

Its all good fun....

How true!


One of the lads here came across one woman breast feeding at the wheel



Indeed!

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

I agree - there is an awful lot of focus about how you must have two hands on the wheel at all times, other wise you are not in control. And we get TV coverage about how teenager gets slammed by "road safety experts" and consequently parents when spotted by in car spy cam driving with only one hand on the wheel.

As Richard Burns says (the World Rally Championship Driver, very well known for driving with one hand on the wheel ): "it used to be the case the two hands were needed to maintain control, but with todays power assisted steering, this is no longer true." (might not be his exact words, but it is what he was saying).

At high speeds, two hands are indeed very important, but in general those speeds are not legal on UK roads - certainly it is not vital to have two hands on the wheel while driving at 70mph on most motorways, or when driving in urban areas. People that say that it is (although how you are supposed to change gear) are yet again creating sweeping global rules based on the requirement of a few specific situations, and are treating all drivers as mindless idiots by insisting that their rules must always be followed.

If anybody says that it is, then I would respond: Are you proposing that all people with a disability affecting an arm should be banned from driving?

True, but what the hands are doing can often be an indicator of what the mind is concentrating on. One hand on the wheel while the other is doing something driving related, that's fine obviously. One hand on the wheel while the other is lighting a fag / operating a mobile phone / looking for sweets / giving young backseat passenger a clip round the ear / turning pages in the A-Z / trying to undo the bra of the front seat passenger (which can be tricky enough on a sofa if you ask me ) etc, well, it all sort of suggests that the driver's mind is preoccupied with something other than driving safely.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I think that the requirement to keep both hands on the steering wheel in the "ten to two" or "quarter to three" position dates back to the days when a high-speed tyre blowout was a distinct possibility whereas these days it is a very rare occurrence (unless the BiB know differently from their experiences of this happening to others).

Yes, at high speed, definitely - even a gust of wind can cause problems then, but the "rule" is definitely being interpreted as an absolute rule at all speeds - so for example taking your hand off the wheel and resting it on your leg while at 30 mph was enough for the youth on telly to be slammed for his dangerous driving style. It is even being used in prosecutions such as the infamous Kit-Kat prosecution where if I remember correctly, the passenger had unwrapped it and the driver was prosecuted for eating it, or the woman with her bottle of water.

Now I don't know the exact details of either case, and cannot say whether they were dangerous for other reasons, but the message is definitely that if you haven't got two hands on the wheel, then you are driving dangerously. This is about as misleading as "Speed Kills" because concentration is not broken by opening the window or sunroof, or scratching your nose, or by eating a sweet, or even by sipping from a bottle (under conditions that do not demand high concentration), and as Richard Burns points out, two hands are not needed to maintain control as power steering has reduced the force needed on the wheel to almost nothing.

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Carl Prescott

I think in both cases the cars were stopped at traffic lights. I have also heard stories about drivers being prosecuted for using their mobiles... after pulling over but with the engine still running.

This is why I don't think asking for traffic police instead of cameras is enough. The problem goes deeper than that. It's not just the cameras, it's the idiots who look at the pictures too. If we had traffic police instead, a lot of them would still be the same idiots.