Prison for Mobile Phone Drivers

[Biker Biggles]

I still think we should bring back the birch for this kind of antisocial behaviour.

Birch looks nice and does its bit for global warming.

The Uk Gov is not the only one to ban the use of mobile phones whilst driving.

http://www.cellular-news.com/car_bans/

Not sure how many are prepared to send you to prison though.

[Bluepete]

The CPS explain it well

http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/180_07.html

From that :

Dangerous driving could include:

• racing or competitive driving;
• disregarding warnings from fellow passengers;
• reading a newspaper/map;

Sat Nav a map?

[Biker Biggles]

Indeed satnav is a map.I am sure that it used to be illegal to have a tv screen visible from the driving position in a car,but somehow it is now legal to have a satnav screen right in front of you while driving.Anyone know how that happened?

Obviously driving while using a hand held mobile has been proven to seriously affect driving, but IMHO even using a handsfree kit is a distraction (tho definitely to a lesser extent). But then again so is talking to someone else in the car, fiddling with the radio, having kids screaming in the back, etc.

the key in all this is how the person was driving at the time, and I'd much rather see police resources being used to ID numpties on the road and be able to ticket them before they've caused an accident just because they were being idiots. Now quite how you write that into the law is another matter!!

[Biker Biggles]

Fizzy----While you are right it is hard to generate performance targets out of common sense like that so I fear it will never happen.

The thing to remember is that laws cannot be created that tailor to each individual. So laws have to cater for the lowest common denominator (within reason - i.e. there is enough of that denominator). That means that if there are enough people causing havoc on the roads due to using a mobile phone, they will have to take that as the lowest common denominator and introduce that law. It's the same kind of logic as can be used for speeding, too.

Whilst I might feel aggrieved that I am (effectively) punished due to the incompetence of others, I do understand why many of these rules exist (not all - some I'm sure are not correct). So I feel happy to moan about it but I wouldn't "expect" it to be changed.

Originally Posted by Biker Biggles

Fizzy----While you are right it is hard to generate performance targets out of common sense like that so I fear it will never happen.

well i can dream can't I?! what's even better about the 'idiot' tag is that you could use it beyond driving too. As an employer it would be particularly useful to be able to identify who the idiots are before you employ them ('I see you've been convicted of 7 counts of idiocy in the last year...'), and even better you could make them pay more for insurance and bar them from parties, etc. There could also be a special speed limit for poeple in this category, thus avoiding the need to make others suffer by these blanket regulations (as per Muffles' point).

And you know what, maybe then people would stop being such idiots...

More legislation... just as well really, there are so many coppers sitting out there twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do. Meaningless without any sort of hands on activity to back it up.

It needs careful thought in terms of what they ban - if they ban hands free kit they'll have to ban touching the radio, reading a map, etc. while driving. Totally unenforceable. Unless they get cameras to do it...