Safe Speed Forums

Absolutely! Far from "preventing the event in the first place", this ill-conceived and stupid law has FACILITATD it! It sends out the message that "using a mobile is OK as long as you're not touching it". And I wouldn't mind betting that MORE people have been using mobiles on the move since it was introduced, now that the authorities have "sanctioned" it under particular circumstances, because most people believe that "the authorities know best".

Some people are more able to do it than others and some situations allow it to happen in more safety than others.

I won't bother expanding the concept to cover speed limit enforcement...

Sorry, but if you'll permit me a cheap jibe - I thought you were talking about cameras there for a minute!

I really think we need to get sense of proportion here.

Millions of people "Talk and Drive" every day! Hundreds of millions every year!

And yet accidents of this sort are so rare that EACH ONE becomes a newsworthy event deserving of national coverage.

As has been said earlier, there is likly to be more to this than simply inattention due to talking on the phone but blaming it on "Talking and driving" means that these other factors will be officially ignored.

I suspect that "Govenor mist" is likly to be a key factor and a far more significant one that talking on the phone. Large trucks ploughing into the back of staitionary or slow moving traffic are common events. Though I have never seen actuall collisions myself I have many many times seen trucks smoking their tyres because the drivers only twigged at the last moment that they were gaining on the traffic ahead faster than they realised.

But this is going to be ignored cos, of course, it was talking on the phone what caused it wasnt it!

And trucks will continue to plough into stationary traffic.

And everything will be OK because the government will release Rapsts, child molesters and murderors from prison in order to make room for the guilty drivers involved!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Well, without it people could "convince" themselves that they were driving sensibly when using a mobile phone, I think the law makes it clear that you mustn't at all.

People that are against this law strike me as people who would like to use a mobile phone whilst they drive becuase they think they can do it safely, and take offence that this option has been closed to them. It's a classic case of "I'm a safe driver me, it's everybody else that's rubbish".



Well, that probably would've happened anyway, it's a growth behaviour, and what with mobile phones shops selling clip on earpieces and telling people that this makes it legal we'll probably get more and more.

Accident? The guy went into the back of a van without braking whilst being distracted by a mobile phone conversation and who knows what else, that's no accident, that's carelessness; a terrible deriliction of duty and responsibility.

In the meantime somebody who is dead played no part whatsoever in their demise which is possibly the unfairest way to go.

Yes this is rare, but I'd like to see it made more rare myself, could happen to me one day if it's not stamped on and all that.

If somebody wants to drive round a race track with big obstacles on whilst talking on a phone and 'accidentally' crash into one of them and KSI themselves that's fine by me, but when we're on public road we owe each other a very high standard of driving, and this guy didn't attain it IMO.

Cameras are highly advertised, signs everywhere, not that they need to be as speed limit signs should be enough.

If you speed through a camera, well, seriously, you were warned.

.......and have millions of near-misses every day.........

(You are a 'phoner-driver', aren't you?)

Yup, I reckon if we treated near misses as if they were crashes and analysed them as much I think a lot of people would be changing their minds about mobile phone use.

I use my hands free mobile in the car and it doesn't impair my driving.

Would that be because you use it in an appropriate way and don't have long indepth coversations whilst driving through town?

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

Yes it does, unless you're the passenger, or you're parked up.

( or this is your car)

I really don't like this whole situation where the Law says it's OK to do something, but if you have an accident while doing it, the punishment is more severe than if you had an accident while not doing it (regardless of whether or not a causal link is proved between the activity and the accident)

If hands-free phone use is so lethal, then they should ban it. That way, my employer would not expect me to use one. The way things are, I am forced to use something which could get me locked up if I have an unavoidable collision. This makes me feel very uneasy.

I get their argument that only a careless driver would end up ramming the back of a traffic queue at that high a speed, but I'm afraid the only message I've got from this conviciton is that if your vehicle causes a fatal collision, the authorities will look for any excuse to prove culpability.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

I tend to use the mobile when I'm on long motorway journeys and the calls can be quite long and involved.

Can someone please explain whats wrong with that?

IMO nothing, so long as you're still capable of keeping enough attention on the road.

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

Yet if you were seen eating an apple you'd be persecuted? I know which is far more dangerous.

I will side with Weepej on this one. I was out driving on the Shore Road, Jordanstown last Easter Sunday. I had to stop at some traffic lights while driving on the nearside lane. The lights changed to green and I was geared up to set off when a pedestrian ambles across the crossing, talking away on his mobile, totally oblivious to everything else. The driver of a black VW Golf beside me gave the idiot a good blast on the horn. Did it wake him up? Did it 'ell! Me, under my breath, I just doubted the idiot's parentage.

Whie out shopping in Belfast, I've often witnessed occasions when someone is so engossed in talking on a mobile, they cross roads without paying attention to oncoming traffic. I've seen at least five near misses when bus drivers have to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting pedestrian mobile phone users.

But am I asking for pedestrians to be banned from using mobile phones? No, because it would be a ridiculous piece of legsislation and totally unenforceable

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

No need to repeat myself.I personally, am against inattentive driving.
What blows my mind, is that DWoDC&A doesn't cover this in its entirety.

Whether you are on a phone while driving or notis overwhelming evidence of:

atrocious observation
pathetic risk detection
unforgiveable risk measurement
reckless risk management
and nonexistent car control

The focus on the phonecall itself, IMHO, is symptomatic of the very same condition that this colossally inept driver obscenely displayed:
Failure / inability to direct observation and attention toward what is fundamentally important, and away from what isn't.

Many drivers failed at this daily without cellphones, and still do. The problem will just become less obvious if the phones are made to go away somehow - you'll still be able to spot them, but they won't all have the same pose - but the root problem remains ... the nut behind the wheel needs better quality control, and more periodic adjustments.

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation