Safe Speed Forums

so off to the shops this morning. Up ahead on a left hand bend in the road is a silver beetle, hazard lights on, parked about starting a metre out from the kerb at a 30 degree angle effectively blocking the whole lane on the bend. Why? So the stupid bint can hold a conversation on her bloody mobile phone "safely".

I'm seeing this more and more these days. Calls that are so important that they have to be taken NOW, so slam brakes on and stop wherever you happen to be.
Stupid question I know but does nobody stop to think of the danger they pose to others?

Also frequently seen on the hard shoulder of the motorway

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

But the adverts telling her (and everybody else) don't actually say that you should find somewhere safe to pull over, they simply say pull over

It's the same sort of deal with the old 30mph = safe malarky.
If you drove past my sons school at 30mph, you would probably find a whole host of angry parents queueing up to knock you out.

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

Anybody using their phone in their car should be banned. Either that or shot or deported. Just because they are stopped does not mean they are no longer in charge of the vehicle. Mind you filter through the M25 during rush hour and see 1 in 10 car drivers doing everything from talking, reading books, doing paperwork, using their blackberry. Unbelievable.



I dont ride past schools any more. Parents in 4x4s shouting at kids and not paying attention to their driving have too close to killing me too often. Irony, it seems, is not without a sense of humour.

Does that include police officers using their TETRA handsets?

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

I assume this doesn't exist at present but it would be great if a phone could be switched to "dormant" mode. When a caller rings a mobile that is set to dormant they could get a message something like:

"The person your calling does not wish to be disturbed, however please press 3 if you consider your call to be an emergency and you will be connected, alternatively press 5 to leave a message"

It might get round the problem whereby a lot of people don't like to switch thier phones off (just in case) but would prefer not to recieve a call unless it was very important, such as when driving or sleeping. Of course your still relying on the caller to use their descretion, but at least they know your busy since you can't tell when initially phoning.

I presume this doesn't exist at present, but would it be possible if the mobile phone companies and handset manuafactures wanted it to?

BRILLIANT! I want one.

I see no technical difficulty.

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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

My feeling on these ist well known.

No one ist that important - und when I hear these naff conversations



If I was his wife on smoochy candlelit dinner in posh frock - that phone would have been rammed where starters fail to get digested!

Ist a telephone und in good old days you drove to nearest services or stopped by red box to make call. Und motorways have SOS at intervals as well.

Ist no need to use one in car or restuarnat or cinema or theatre und ist self-obessed egotistal arrogance to think you should be indispensible 24/7

Oooh! I can go off on one very easily on Handy use. They are for emergency only. Nothing else. Fail to see point of the Handy TV set, camera, singing all dancing. Want to watch telly on proper telly - nice wide screen, stereo sound, und being cuddled by Mad Doc

Und since we like taking photos - want to see in fullest glory displayed in album to effect und telling photo-story of family life, memories and so on. Naff little images on Handy do not work for me.

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Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

A preliminary search revealed nothing, so I slapped a patent application on this one (including the equipment to allow it to be used in domestic as well as car situations) about 5 years ago. I was pipped at the post by Toshiba (I think) who had submitted one about a year before me (that did NOT show up on the prelim searcxh). cost me about £500 I think - but could have made me shedloads!

Pretty much all of the companies that offer "follow me" numbers offer that service (and a whole host of other features as well).


The camera's on phone's these days are far removed from what they were a year ago. It is now more than possible to take a picture on a camera phone, have it printed on 6x4 photo paper and you would never guess it was taken on a phone.

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

We have a corporate policy that you cannot attend a conference call when driving, even on hands free. As my company lives on conference calls, it's quite refreshing to hear meeting organisers or most senior people on calls asking "are you driving", if the response is in the affirmative the call is stopped until the driver hangs up. They can call back in when they have stopped.

If you call someone who is obviously driving, I'd suggest you say (even if they have hands free, to be honest) that they should call you back when it is safe to do so as A) you would like their full concentration and B) it would be really bad form to be talking business with someone and causing them to crash.

Just a thought.

WRT tetra radios - are these PTT type devices? I believe such items are deliberately left out of legislation outlawing mobile phones, they do not require the same level of concentration to 'make' a call (push the key) and they are asyncronous. So if my wife and I are travelling in convoy, we could use our walkie talkies to keep in touch. We have had them in the car on one such journey, but whilst they were switched on they weren't used other than directives such as "I'm pulling off here to refuel".

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

I believe Tetra radios are both push to talk and can be used as a phone to connect to the PSTN network. Also they don't opperate on any frequency listed in the regulations so are excempt from the silly mobile phone law. As are PMR, etc.

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Andrew.

TETRA radios work on 380-383MHz and 390-393MHz for the authorities.

While they are much more secure, a lot of police officers are not impressed by them as it can take anything up to 6 seconds for a channel to be allocated.

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

How does that work? I've never come across it upto now.

My new Nokia 6230i has a PTT (push to talk) function, but is dependant on the network to acvtivate it. However, if using it in the PTT mode, would I exempt from the Mobile phone law.

On a sie note, I read somewhere that the TETRA sets need to be turned off when using speed measuring equipment, as they can cause interference and mis-readings. Is this still the case?

If so, can you ask for evidence that the TETRA sets were turned off if having to defend a speeding allegation.? How would the Police / SCP's provide such proof?

The law doesn't mention push-to-talk, the main reason Tetra would be excempt is the frequency it operates on. Which is why I think it is a silly law.

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Andrew.

My mobile phone is for MY convenience no-one elses, I choose when to make a call on it and when I want to answer it.
If you call me when it's not safe(I work in construction), or I'm driving I ignore it, when I'm back in a safe area safe or I stop driving there's missed calls on the screen, if you haven't got a withheld number I'll call back, if you have tough.

I remember an urban myth from years ago about the cop when asked why he'd lost the car he was chasing replied "you try driving while talking into this f**king thing"
fatboytim

A mobile phone is nothing more than a cellular two way radio (as is TETRA), and I fail to see what the operating frequency of a cellular radio has to do with whether it can be used while driving?


You sign yourself up for a "follow me" number, and you decide what you want to happen to your incoming calls in your control panel (which is web & handset based with regards control).

At the moment, mine is set up to route all incoming voice calls to my mobile.
If the mobile does not respond, or I fail to answer within a preset (by me) number of rings, then the caller is redirected to my house phone.
If that fails to answer (again, preset amount of rings), then it trips in to answerphone and then e-mails me the voicemail to both my phone & web based e-mail addy.

There are plenty of other options I can employ (eg, the menu driven system mentioned earlier), but a menu system severely annoys me when I encounter it, so I am not going to inflict it on someone else.

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

You are of course correct. However, you are using "common sense". When has the law ever had anything to do with common sense?!

The silly mobile phone law

Sections (1), (2), and (3) tell you that you are not allowed to use a mobile phone while driving, or while supervising a learner or "cause or permit" someone else to use a mobile phone while driving.
Section (4) excempts "two-way radios".
Section (5) excempts emergency calls.
Section (6)(d) defines what a two-way radio is and what frequencies it should not operate on to be legal to use while driving.

If Tetra is ~380-400MHz then it is excempt from the law. Even if you use it hand-held.

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Andrew.

"Cause or permit"? What the hell does that mean? If you're a passenger and the driver makes a phone call on a hand held are you permitting him by not doing or saying anything about it? Or is this just legalese for companies meaning don't put the wage-slaves in a position where they need to do it?

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