Safe Speed Forums

I don't know but wasn't the previous law a bit subjective?

Not according to here paragraph 3.

Driving without reasonable consideration - Section 3 RTA 1988
The law
This offence is committed when a vehicle is driven on a road or other public place "as a result of which other persons using the road or place are inconvenienced." 'Other persons' may include persons in or on the driver's vehicle itself. The penalties are the same as for "Careless Driving".

Generally, prosecutors prefer 'Careless Driving"' to "Driving without due consideration" as the former is easier to prove - there is no need to show that an actual road user is inconvenienced, etc. But 'due consideration' is more appropriate where the real harm done is aimed at, or suffered by a particular person.

The accused must be proved:

to have fallen below the standard of a reasonable, prudent and competent driver in the circumstances of the case; and
to have done so without reasonable consideration for others; and
to have inconvenienced an actual road user.
Note the essential difference between the two offences under Section 3 RTA 1988 is that in cases of careless driving the prosecution need not show that any other person was inconvenienced. In cases of inconsiderate driving, there must be evidence that some other user of the road or public place was actually inconvenienced.

This offence is appropriate when the driving amounts to a clear act of incompetence, selfishness, impatience or aggressiveness. There must, however, also be some inconvenience to other road users, for example, forcing other drivers to move over and/or brake as a consequence. Examples of conduct appropriate for a charge of driving without reasonable consideration are:

flashing of lights to force other drivers in front to give way;
misuse of any lane to avoid queuing or gain some other advantage over other drivers;
unnecessarily remaining in an overtaking lane;
unnecessarily slow driving or braking without good cause;
driving with un-dipped headlights which dazzle oncoming drivers;
driving through a puddle causing pedestrians to be splashed;
driving a bus in such a way as to scare the passengers.

unnecessarily slow driving or braking without good cause

that all depends where people are using phones. I was trying to show that certain behaviours aren't necessarily going to be reflected in fatal accident statistics.
If the phone usage is mainly in low speed urban environments, for instance, then the accidents are more likely to be of the minor variety - or avoided by those of us who can see that the idiot ahead is going to pull out of that junction because he's too busy on the phone to notice me.

And I can't see how resources are likely to be taken away from other needs. Surely the traffic cop is looking at ALL dangers. We aren't going to have dedicated phone-police, are we?

...... simply cruising around in a car looking for offenders of any kind is unlikely to yield much in the way of results.

Why's that then?

Can't they cope with more than one thing at a time? Perhaps we need more women police officers who can multi-task.

Worked for a long time , till PC methods thought otherwise - then crime figures went up, as police numbers went down - wonder why

Since we have less traffic police.. due to automatic enforcement - there is less chance of these mobile phone offences being copped in the act and prosecuted

Well, thanks to this new law, I now get to ignore the phone completely while driving.

As you were (presumably) operating hands-free before, what difference does it make?

As I have said previously, in my view it was totally out of order for your employers to expect you to answer support calls on the move, but if the alternative is the dole queue, then it's hardly surprising...

Haven't the definitions been tightened now, so that you can no-longer use a handhelf phone that's in loudspeaker mode and resting on your lap or the dashboard (which still gives better sound quality than a handsfree kit)