Car Drivers Using Mobiles

[Edvardus]

... The police said without an independent witness my information could not be used. ...

Unless there's something about this that you have not mentioned, you were an independent witness.

(Just imagine you had seen somebody run out of a bank firing a gun and you had taken the number of the getaway car....)

Nope, I thought I had been able to give the police everything needed. After all, they are able to check with mobile operators to locate when and where a handset has been used, so that would have verified what I had given them. They told me that if I wanted to take it further I would have to make a private prosecution. The law is an ass.

[reohn2]

....................The law is an ass.

And so are the police!

[DougieB]

... The police said without an independent witness my information could not be used. ...

Unless there's something about this that you have not mentioned, you were an independent witness.

(Just imagine you had seen somebody run out of a bank firing a gun and you had taken the number of the getaway car....)

Nope, I thought I had been able to give the police everything needed. After all, they are able to check with mobile operators to locate when and where a handset has been used, so that would have verified what I had given them. They told me that if I wanted to take it further I would have to make a private prosecution. The law is an ass.

don't you need to have 2 witnesses ? it seems absurd to me that I could make 100 complaints against number plates and the police would have to follow up every single one, getting mobile phone records. I could just supply the first 100 reg no's I see, an easy way to waste police time.

[Tonyf33]

I caught my son using his phone in the car the other day, I was best not pleased & gave him a right rollicking. He is a good driver(IMO) & still makes his observations as he should & has racked up 30K since last March but I'm giving him any excuses PERIOD!

HOWEVER, I was reading the local free rag & it reported there was a police surveillance study (it didn't mention arrests or prosecutions?) over 1 hour during rush hour traffic. It caught people juggling, texting, touching Sat-nav, touching CD/Radio facia, making a phone call, applying make-up & various other things, Apparently 4 people were having a 'HOT' drink(How they knew it was hot I don't know). The police spokesperson said something to the effect of, don't do anything in your car even when at a standstill as this could lead to distraction.
WHAT THEY FAILED TO SAY WAS: dont look round at the kids argueing or screaming at other, do ensure you use correct observations at all time, do drive in manner that's considerate to all other road users, do obey the law at all times, do not use the cigarrette lighter, do not smoke a cigarette, do not adjust your mirrors at any time, do not look out of the window at other drivers or anything not related to your journey.
Quite frankly I could go on, there are so many other things that are far more distracting than making a mobile phone call BUT the police don't do squit about the other 'non-illegal' distractions, it is a big hipocrasy as far as I'm concerned.

I've probably made/answered 1/2 a dozen calls in 15 years(the last one I can't remember how far back) & to be honest I still KNOW that I am a better driver & am making better observations & planning than a very large proportion of the idiots out there on the road without an 'illegal distraction'. If I ever did get caught (which isn't likely given my lack of using the phone in the car in the first place) I would dare the police to prove that my driving was affected in such a way that I posed an increased threat over & above ANY persons making supposed legal distractions. I'm not saying make it legal but my point is that there are greater distractions than phone calls that are not pulled up.

For sure, some just cannot drive properly anyway & so giving them another task to do they cannot handle it & are a danger, but there's the ones who are doing the other stuff & are as just a big a danger. Should we ban everything that distracts us completely? Should this include Sat-nav, bike computers, looking out the window, even checking out corking sexy bikes that pass the other way:) ?

I also believe that punishments are not harsh enough for those that cause incidents/injury/death full stop, even more so when it comes to a vunerable road user.
As has been said it isn't costly to have hands free fitted, it would be a simple law for the government to pass through that ALL NEW motorised vehicles MUST have a built in hands free phone connection & retro fit then at a discount to all (correctly taxed/MOT'd/Insured) used vehicles. Surely the cost would be off-set by the fewer accidents caused that rcan un into 6 figure sums of public money for just one accident.

[irc]

... The police said without an independent witness my information could not be used. ...

Unless there's something about this that you have not mentioned, you were an independent witness.

(Just imagine you had seen somebody run out of a bank firing a gun and you had taken the number of the getaway car....)

Nope, I thought I had been able to give the police everything needed. After all, they are able to check with mobile operators to locate when and where a handset has been used, so that would have verified what I had given them. They told me that if I wanted to take it further I would have to make a private prosecution. The law is an ass.

There are safeguards in place tp prevent the police accessing mobile phone data without a very good reason. As far as I know to investigating the location of a phone can only be done either if there is concern for the safety of the owner or in the case of serious crime. I don't think mobile phone use qualifies.

[Gearoidmuar]

It's a huge concern for me, cycling.

The answer is that the CTC should start a campaign to stop it totally.

Simple demand. You're caught talking on your mobile phone? You lose your licence for a year AND your phone is confiscated.
This would stop it dead. End of argument.
This is too severe??

I'll tell you something. In Norway, no-one speeds and they have slow speed limits. Why? They get fined about 1000 euro equivalent.

[Tom Richardson]

there are so many other things that are far more distracting than making a mobile phone call BUT the police don't do squit about the other 'non-illegal' distractions, it is a big hipocrasy as far as I'm concerned.

The effect of driving while on the phone has been found to be especially distracting and much more so than things like bickering kids etc. Same applies to hands free but, as I recall, they felt that it would be hard to spot drivers using hands free so pointless putting it on the statutes.
The whole thing is a compromise between the expectations of people who don't like being killed and motorists who think that safety is a restriction of their libertarian rights.

[cjchambers]

Given that the research shows that using a hand-free is still a significant distraction, I really can't get my head around why everyone (including the police, government etc) is so keen to promote it. With or without a law (any ban on hands-free is clearly going to be unenforceable), the message should be clear - using any phone while driving is unacceptable, hands-free or not. By legitimising phone use via hands-free, people are fooled into thinking that it's acceptable and as a result we could end up with more and more people driving around not really paying attention.

[thirdcrank]

... don't you need to have 2 witnesses ? it seems absurd to me that I could make 100 complaints against number plates and the police would have to follow up every single one, getting mobile phone records. I could just supply the first 100 reg no's I see, an easy way to waste police time.

Scots law is different to English in the matter of corroboration and that's the limit of my knowledge there. In E & W the formal need for corroboration is much narrower and there are very few offences which require two witnesses to prove it - perjury is the only one I can think of at the mo. OTOH, the CPS Codes of Practice, which require a likelihood of conviction before starting a prosecution, have meant that more emphasis is placed on corroboration in E & W than used to be the case.

The independent witness thing is quite separate. That really applies to things where the parties have an interest in the outcome of a case, road accidents being a typical case. In edvardus' case, it seems to me that the officer was unclear in his/her own mind what they were trying to get across. Within the framework of what both irc and I have been saying above, IMO it would have been perfectly acceptable for the officer to have said 'Your report is noted but I intend taking no action. A police investigation of the allegation would not be worthwhile.'

Edvardus

The law may be a ass but I don't think that is the case here. While the course of action you suggest may be theoretically possible, it's unrealistic IMO. The police service is now governed by national and local priorities and as the queeze tightens, that will be even more so. If you want something like this to be a priority, there are consultation arrangements in place to make the case. Stand in line behind all the people concerned about litter, children hanging about on street corners, dog muck on the footway, too much parking enforcement, not enough parking enforcement, etc. Even if it became a priority, the most effective enforcement would be drivers being stopped at the time, interviewed and given a ticket. Some would go to Mr Loophole and similar, 99% would pay up.

[Edvardus]

There are safeguards in place tp prevent the police accessing mobile phone data without a very good reason. As far as I know to investigating the location of a phone can only be done either if there is concern for the safety of the owner or in the case of serious crime. I don't think mobile phone use qualifies.

I used to work for one of the major mobile networks and there was a special police liaison department which handled requests from the police. This would normally centre upon where and when a handset was being used (easily determined by triangulation between transmitters). As far as I recall, there was no stipulation as to what type of criminal activity was being performed before the network supplied the information.

[Michael R]

There are safeguards in place tp prevent the police accessing mobile phone data without a very good reason. As far as I know to investigating the location of a phone can only be done either if there is concern for the safety of the owner or in the case of serious crime. I don't think mobile phone use qualifies.

I used to work for one of the major mobile networks and there was a special police liaison department which handled requests from the police. This would normally centre upon where and when a handset was being used (easily determined by triangulation between transmitters). As far as I recall, there was no stipulation as to what type of criminal activity was being performed before the network supplied the information.

Attempted homicide?

[irc]

There are safeguards in place tp prevent the police accessing mobile phone data without a very good reason. As far as I know to investigating the location of a phone can only be done either if there is concern for the safety of the owner or in the case of serious crime. I don't think mobile phone use qualifies.

I used to work for one of the major mobile networks and there was a special police liaison department which handled requests from the police. This would normally centre upon where and when a handset was being used (easily determined by triangulation between transmitters). As far as I recall, there was no stipulation as to what type of criminal activity was being performed before the network supplied the information.

Of course you need to know the tel number of the mobiles concerned. Did you give the police this information?

[thirdcrank]

I presume mobile phone records are regarded as personal data and so subject to protection. A lot of this is after my time, and I'm conscious that when I've posted about mobile phone use before, I may have been a bit quick to assume that phone records would be readily available. As irc says, with a summary offence like using one while driving, they might not be available. So much depends on the views of the Information Commissioner.

When digital communication was relatively new, this became something of an issue with incomplete 999 calls. Under the old manual system, a GPO operator would connect a 999 caller to the relevant emergency service and then stay on the line, ensuring the continuity of the connection etc. The line would not be disconnected until the call was properly completed. This meant that if the caller broke off, a decision could be taken whether a physical trace was needed. (There was no other way of knowing the caller's number, except by reverse checking the number they gave, which may or may not have been correct.) An emergency service supervisor then had to decide whether to treat it as a hoax or investigate whether the caller had been overcome by the emergency. The line could be kept open indefinitely, so anybody daft enough to use their own house phone to make a bomb threat etc., got a nasty surprise the next time they picked up the phone and found they were still connected.

The 999s were just about the last part of the system to be computerised and then, even though the caller's number was shown on the screen at the exchange and the location could be established immediately, the information was only released on the personal application of a superintendent. Around that time, the increasing use of mobile phones led to all sorts of complications. If the authorities feel that that level of authorisation, which is relatively high, is necessary, then a lot of thought is going to go into making applications. The risk of the floodlight of hindsight plays very heavily. No police superintendent is likely to risk being creative, especially just to get info about alleged mobile phone use at the wheel.

[Edvardus]

Of course you need to know the tel number of the mobiles concerned. Did you give the police this information?

It's not really necessary to have this because as soon as a handset is used on any network the imei or handset serial number is automatically recorded. In the same way that if Joe Soap uses his sim card in your handset, both sets of information are recorded, plus of course what numbers call were made to. All sorts of convoluted records were helpful when faced with a customer who "forgot" they had used services...

[irc]

Of course you need to know the tel number of the mobiles concerned. Did you give the police this information?

It's not really necessary to have this because as soon as a handset is used on any network the imei or handset serial number is automatically recorded. In the same way that if Joe Soap uses his sim card in your handset, both sets of information are recorded, plus of course what numbers call were made to. All sorts of convoluted records were helpful when faced with a customer who "forgot" they had used services...

At any time the mobile network in any area will be handling many calls from different phones. Without knowing a driver's tel number how do you establish he was using his phone. If a driver is interviewed later I'm not aware of any power to require him to give the police his mobile phone number. Or even if the driver sgives the police his mobile tel no. How do you know the driver does not have more than one mobile and is not just giving you the number of the one he wasn't using?

Have a look at some of the speed camera websites to see how well traffic law is understood and how far some drivers will go to avoid a conviction.

I hate seeing drvers on mobiles but third party reports to the police won't help. Stiffer penalties and enforcement by the police is the only way to stop it.