Comment on What’s driving Cycling Mikey, Britain’s most hated cyclist?
mackwinston@feddit.uk 10 months agoUnder the law, if you pull into a lay-by, stop the car, turn off the engine, remove the key, and leave the car to take a phone call, you can still be charged and found guilty of using a phone “while driving”.
Don’t be absurd. There is exactly one case where this was discussed and it was a suspected drink driver who had been observed to be driving and in motion (look up the case here: vlex.co.uk/vid/pinner-v-everett-793596681). There are exactly 0 prosecutions for driving offences for people who weren’t actually in their car and driving when the alleged offence took place.
Also two way radios are banned if they are hand held. The rules are the same for two way radios - they must be hands-free.
Blake@feddit.uk 10 months ago
Nope, you’re wrong about radios.
“Most drivers are aware that it’s an offence to use a hand-held mobile phone while driving. This also applies to any “interactive communications device”, but an exemption applies for two way radios”
Also, there’s more than one case where Pinner v Everett has been used as precedent, you can see on the very page that you linked that the precedent has been cited in 131 cases, and the original link I shared has CPS reference it and state that it can use it as precedent for mobile phone use, and I think that the Crown Prosecution Service might know a bit more than we do about prosecution than we do. But sure, by all means, keep arguing with me about it in the comments.
mackwinston@feddit.uk 10 months ago
Well I stand corrected on 2 way radios (one of those differences between Manx and English law - I know first hand that 2 way radios have to be hands-free here).
Have any of those Pinner v Everett cases been for mobile phone use, or similar? Or has it all been to do with drink driving - certainly the list of citations that site gives for free were all about failure to provide a sample. Drink driving is a completely different kettle of fish because you can prove an offence on someone not in a car if you’ve observed them driving five minutes ago, because you remain over the limit for a considerable period of time. Given how many driving offences are prosecuted, 131 cases since 1969 (over 50 years ago) is a vanishingly tiny proportion of cases.
Lots of things “can” happen but a prosecution of someone for using a mobile phone in a layby with the keys out the ignition is has about as likely as my underwear teleporting one foot to the left unexpectedly.
Blake@feddit.uk 10 months ago
Why are you expecting me to look through hundreds of citations to find a case about mobile phone use when the CPS outright states that it could be used for that purpose? If you want to argue it then get in touch with them.
Also, 131 citations is quite a lot. There are around 11,000 rulings from the House of Lords, and maybe only 2000 or so of the rulings have more than 130 citations.
Anyways, all of that aside - is using a handheld phone while stuck in traffic more dangerous than using a handsfree phone while travelling at 60 miles an hour?
mackwinston@feddit.uk 10 months ago
That I don’t know. However, using a hand held phone in a traffic jam is certainly hazardous, as my Houston ramming incident demonstrated. (CyclingMikey has also several videoed incidents of people driving very badly in traffic jams while using hand held phones, putting vulnerable road users such as pedestrians at risk).
Personally I think all mobile phone use behind the wheel should be banned including hands-free, but legislation is often the art of the possible and lines have to be drawn somewhere (e.g. why is the speed limit in urban areas 30 mph, not 31 or 35 or 25? At some point someone has to draw that line. Enforcability would also be a factor, and when considering a change in the law, and it would be very hard to enforce a ban on hands free phone use).
Hands-free phone calls have been shown to cause additional risk, much more so than just talking to a passenger (there are a number of reasons why this is so, some of it is the brutal compression from the codec reducing intelligibility added to the limited audio bandwidth also reducing intelligibility, which means more mental effort must be spent on a phone call than just talking to a passenger). Using a hands free phone at 60 mph might be less likely to be a factor in a crash than going on Instagram heads down on a hand held phone in a traffic jam, but risk = probability x consequences and the consequences of having a distraction incident at 60 mph will be more severe even if the probability is lower.
I think we don’t take driving as seriously as we should, we put vulnerable 3rd party road users in a lot of danger by not devoting our full attention to driving. Everyone Mikey catches quite honestly deserves what they got - if they can’t take driving seriously they need to have their driving licences taken away. If you can’t resist the temptation to use your phone turn the damn thing off and put it in your bag in the back seat.