Safe Speed Forums

Excellent post, Paul, it's these types of analyses & statistical points that need to be more openly discussed in a non-emotive way with all who make these laws, enforce them and support them.

Over legislation is non-productive and changes society, usually by removing big freedoms for minimal (if any) real benefit.

Here's an update on this whole issue

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/ ... 356141.ece

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Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.

Interesting statistics! I wonder if there's anything listing how many are repeat offenders. Although in 6 months time, I reckon the extra attention the police are giving, to catch the idiots driving whilst using their phones will have died down, the same way it happened when the law first came in.

Paul,
Just to update you and get your opinion on the so far statistics and replys from the so called observant motorists. Since the 27th Feb 07 to my last shift on Fri 16th Mar 07, I alone have issued 20 endorsable tickets for the use of mobile phone whilst driving. The following are the circs of how they have been caught.

1. Driving behind the culprit in a fully liveried police vehicle, then being able to pull up side by side to them and giving them a blast of horn / siren, before they are actually aware of my presence.

2.Sat as lead vehicle at a set of red traffic signals with the offending vehicle either turning or continuing across my path.

3.Vehicle being driven towards me from the opposite direction and passed me from a distance of about 200yards from me then about a quarter of a mile following them after I have turned around to go after them.

All of these drivers when asked did they not see me 99% of them replied in one way or another " NO, WERE WHERE YOU ". The lenght of call ranged from 35 sec to 4minutes.

Which like them I hear you say it wasnt long, I sat there and put the VASCAR unit on time and said right lets see how long 35 secs is and when you actually sit and time it, most of them said " RIGHT, RIGHT I AGREE ITS TOO LONG ".

My point is that none of them where aware of either me or the surrounding actual or potential dangers they were driving in at the time they were on there mobile phone, so, you can imagine if they came across a scenario that only them could avoid by full concentration then the consequences could have been disasterous.

This is the reason that I concentrate on dealing with drivers who constantly use there mobile phone, and as an added bonus to substantiate the ticket, they all had had previous £30 tickets for the same offence.

So, to all of you who think that it is acceptable to drive and use a mobile phone are these drivers in a minority or are they representing the majority, and if so, how do we try and stop it before someone is killed.

Who is wrong me or the motorists for the mobile phone driving, this is my personal day to day experience of it as it is not looking at figures which can quiet easily be massaged as they often are.
Stephen

Don't you find similar observation weakness from motorists in general who aren't on the phone?

And don't forget that any that are 'on the ball' see you and hide their phone, so there's a strong selection bias in your observations.

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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

Hmm,
By the logic used in this and other similar threads, we could argue that at the time shown Homers driving was safer than anyone who had just crashed and was not sending a fax, baking a cake or singing karaoke.

Why am I not surprised they were all repeat offenders.........


Anyway, well done. Personally, I think the fine for a second offence should a lot higher. That way the idiots would be concentrating on their driving, not their phones.

Liebchen .. I so agree. Handy phones .. I have reputation of the on this topic which make Andreas und Krissi und Mike look very tame felines by comparison. Triple Liebchen get all upset over my rants on the Handy

But no matter. I really dislike these little phones with the naff ring tones und conversations.. especially in the restaurants, cinema, theatre - intruding into my enjoyment of good night out on the tiles und anticipation of a really wild night on hot tin roof

Und only this morning.. was in queue of traffic .. und car immediately behind me so obviously texting. It made me very nervous of a prang to my lovely butch Jag who need more surgery like he need hole in his sump (Longest story .. but I was hit und runned into by some chavs in chuckway on the run .. whilst on supermarket carpark. They runned aways.. leaving my lovel toy boy of metal most beautiful with severe "head injury und nursing a poorly headlamp und wing" - but he recover magnficently well after extensive cosmetic und life saving surgery .. und severe nuisance to ourselves. )

I then meet some bloke shaving later on in same journey but a different queue as this morning was absolute hell as so many incidents in the hail und wind storms :rolleyes:

This guy was moving forward in traffic .. but eyes in the mirror whilst he shave off the stubble with his Braun whatever close shaver. :rolleyes: His eyes certainly not on car in front of him .. und I was very, very wary. This was a single lane A road .. so had no "escape lane" as such.. but confess I resorted to using a residential as a kind of rat run just to escape this idiot. :rolleyes: I am naturally a little nervous of things too close to the rear end for a reason of which you may be aware

I have never ever used a handy held phone in car or on bike. I use a hands free only if I have to.. und that I count on one hand over the past years.. the only time being when held up in severe storm und knowing Mad Doc would worry about me.

I do not even know the number of my Handy phone.. such ist frequency of its use I do not base my life on one

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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!

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Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
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Education.


The motorist. They obviously weren't being observant!

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Pecunia Prius Equitas et Salus

I admit to missing a couple of pages of this thread, but to pick up on what Stephen was saying...

IMO it comes down to the same argument that those who exceed the speed limit and don't get caught are safer and more observant than those who either exceed it and do get caught or possibly even those who don't exceed it at all.

Those who you caught clearly weren't paying attention. If they had have been then they would have seen you and (at least tried to) hide the phone. I've done it myself. So, we have an argument that goes something along these lines:

Those who are on the phone and getting caught for it are dangerous as they have clearly made serious failures in observation.

Those who are still using hand-held phones but NOT getting caught are clearly making adequate* observations, or they would have been caught.

I'd be willing to bet that if you stopped a random cross section of motorists who were not using a hand held mobile and asked them where you had come from / how long you'd been following them, a high proportion would not be able to answer. I'd be willing to bet that, of those who were using hands free mobile phones, the proportion who didn't see you would be even higher than that.

*At least adequate to see a fully liveried police car.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

So if as soon as you get behind them and come into their view, you see them quickly put the phone away, would you still pull them even though they are obviously paying at least some attention to what's going on in order to have seen them?

If not then I guess it comes down to the same as how Paul keeps saying speed limits should be enforced, ie prosecute people for speeding if their actions are actually dangerous.

Of course, I bet a lot of forces are deploying unmarked cars in order to catch the observant mobile phone drivers too,

I always pull them up whether they put it down or not, after they see me I do accept that some drivers can't even remember how they got to their destination's without useing a mobile phone. But as I am sure some of you will know this is not an offence, it only becomes dodgy when you are involved in an incident and you cant explain the last couple of seconds let alone the previous few minutes of there journey,but even then there might be just a momentarily lapse which seems to be acceptable these days to get drivers out of a prosecution.

The new legislation governing mobile phone use is a preventative measure or at least it should be, but unfortuneatly it seems to be getting used on a daily basis, due to the fact that motorists think it is there right to be able to drive about and do as they please.

No matter what anyone says to defend the acts of why, motorists should speed,use mobile's ,jump red lights and drive at speed along roads which quite clearly isnt safe, then I will be out there to enforce the 3 Es, which sadly in a lot of cases ends in enforcement as the poor attitude towards the situation and the fact that I should dare challenge them on there ability to drive.

In my force we don't have any unliveried police vehicle's on road policing unit's, everything is done in liveried. I would imagine it would be like shelling peas if we did. This is just my opinion but I am sure someone will disagree.
Stephen

Using a mobile phone has become engrained in our (the royal our) daily lives, people have learned to live with them. Getting them to move forward and learn to live without them for the time they are driving a motor vehicle isn't going to be easy.

Many years ago when the first mobiles came out I was working for British Rail. A lot of engineers were issued with them and used them whilst out and about on the track. One day an engineer was on the phone and was killed by being run down by a train. So engrossed was he in the conversation that he failed to see or hear the train coming that killed him.

Their use whilst working on the tracks was then banned by BR on pain of dismissal. There were no more fatalities after that.

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

Except for the passengers killed in accidents caused by maintenance crews "forgetting" to reassemble points correctly.

Perhaps they were on their (illegal) mobiles in the dead of night and distracted from doing their jobs properly.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

N/R rule book states that mobiles shall only be used in a position of safety --

All infrastructure companies are banned by Network Rail from using mobiles outside this ---

Yet - Network rail personnel are the prime culprits in breaking this rule -


it's like walking accross a motorway with a phone glued to your ear - only the traffic is doing 125, not 70 ,and it can't swerve, or brake and stop in a short distance.

RTTM

Exactly what I was going to post Lum! If said dozy chap was walking down the track talking on his radio, would he not have been mown down?

Three questions for Stephen:

1. Do you use any handheld communications equipment whilst driving?

2. How many people have you nicked/pulled over/whatever for driving with their hand propping up the side of their head?

3. How many people did you see before the mobile-specific law and not pull over, perhaps because the paperwork for driving without due care was more onerous?

Your answer to your questions are as follows.

1. No we use hands free kits on the main car set and push to talk on the hand held radio.

2.I have never nicked any one for proping there head up but I have stopped them for talking to the side of there head,but if I am not sure about seeing a mobile in there hand then they get the benefit of the doubt.

3.Prior to the mobile phone legislation ie £30 fine i have done a couple for not being in proper control of the car, whilst using a mobile phone and very rare a sec 3 as they normally see by the time you have witnessed enough to proceed with a 3.

Stephen

I've never quite been able to get my head round this either. I'm told that the biggest danger is the distraction of theconversation and yet it's OK for emergency services to use a hand-held mic with a push-to-talk button. I believe CB radios are still OK too? Now I use a hand-held radio on a boat a fair bit and one has to think much harder when talking in that manner rather than a mobile phone with "duplex" type communication and no push-to-talk button.

As an aside, about 4 or 5 years ago, I was talking to someone on the phone and he must have been driving his car at the time. Part way through the conversation he interrupted - quite calmly, and said "I'll have to go now, I'm going off". I replied that he seemed load and clear to me but he'd ended the call. A few seconds later I re-dailled and he told me that by "going off" he was referring to the road rather than the signal! Apparently he'd been going down a hill and had hit a patch of ice (it was winter) and been unable to make it round the bend at the bottom so he'd ended up in a ditch. Amusingly, his car was on top of the previous car - which had suffered the same fate a few minutes earlier! (nobody hurt though).