Deterring mobile phone use

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meic
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by meic »

Years ago I got a mark in an exam for knowing that legally you were driving while filling your car with petrol. The other choices being in charge of or attempting to drive.


So what happens when the passenger fills the car while the "real" driver goes for a pee?
Or old fashioned service stations with pump service.
I guess the law must have been that you remain the driver while fueling, rather than fueling makes you a driver.
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reohn2
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by reohn2 »

meic wrote:
Years ago I got a mark in an exam for knowing that legally you were driving while filling your car with petrol. The other choices being in charge of or attempting to drive.


So what happens when the passenger fills the car while the "real" driver goes for a pee?
Or old fashioned service stations with pump service.
I guess the law must have been that you remain the driver while fueling, rather than fueling makes you a driver.


I think the term is 'being in charge of a motor vehicle'
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meic
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by meic »

In the particular case of the mobile phone laws, the term in the regulations is "driving" not "being in charge".
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thirdcrank
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by thirdcrank »

The legal border between driving and not driving in a particular set of circumstances will be decided by court decisions, rather than on a cycling forum. Back to the breathalyser, in its early days, somebody prosecuted under the Road Safety Act challenged the legality of the requirement to provide a breath sample on the basis that they had by then turned off their engine. Another appeal was based on a member of the public having confiscated the "driver's" keys before calling the police and again, plain clothes police arrested a driver before the arrival of a uniformed officer with a breathalyser and the power to use it. This is what I was getting at above when I mentioned the House of Lords: after initial legal testing, it was tidied up.

Any prosecution is decided on its "facts" ie what is proved by evidence to have happened in the setting of the relevant law, which is a combination of the legislation and precedents set by the higher court. One of the skills of lawyers is in persuading the courts that what others, especially the prosecution thought to be the law is not so in their particular case. Countless cases are finalised on an interpretation then a defendant goes to appeal, possibly to the Supreme Court or €urope and their case is "distinguished" from the earlier precedents. Sometimes, this can mean that there are two precedents ie the facts on eg what constitutes "driving" have to be looked at more closely to see which applies. In others, the latest court decision is scrapping the earlier one, perhaps because times have changed.
reohn2
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by reohn2 »

meic wrote:In the particular case of the mobile phone laws, the term in the regulations is "driving" not "being in charge".

I suppose like so much of UK law it needs defining what affects the driving/being in charge,hairs beginning to get split....
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pwa
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by pwa »

A few days back I was driving along one of the lanes that lead into our village and as I approached a crossroads a car in front just stopped, in the middle of the carriageway, for no apparent reason. I passed on the right and as I did so I looked at the driver out of curiosity and saw he was on the phone. Not only that, he was a minister in HM's Government. I'm not saying which one, but I live in Wales. He had a parking space immediately to his left but could not risk missing his call so had stopped in the middle of the road. Maybe I should be glad that at least he knew to stop. Never liked him much, anyway.
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meic
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by meic »

The legal border between driving and not driving in a particular set of circumstances will be decided by court decisions, rather than on a cycling forum.

We are not trying to make that decision, just find out which decision has been made, if any.
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pwa
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by pwa »

A friend of mine was prosecuted for using his phone whilst driving, but was stationary and parked at the time. He had the engine running and that seemed to be enough. He was driving a van with a refrigeration unit and was trying to get the freezer back down its target temperature after a delivery, so the engine running did not signify an intention to move off with phone in hand. But he got the points anyway.
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by thirdcrank »

pwa wrote:A friend of mine was prosecuted for using his phone whilst driving, but was stationary and parked at the time. He had the engine running and that seemed to be enough. He was driving a van with a refrigeration unit and was trying to get the freezer back down its target temperature after a delivery, so the engine running did not signify an intention to move off with phone in hand. But he got the points anyway.


An individual case like that gives an idea of the way things are being enforced, but it's not definitive unless the person involved appealed on the grounds that they were not driving. The fixed penalty system pretty much depends on the majority of defendants opting for the most straightforward option. For somebody willing and (financially) able to give it ago. I'd have thought that that didn't count as driving, if they could demonstrate that they were well and truly parked. A breathalyser case in those circumstances might be less easy to defend.

Breath testing takes me to "in charge" which others have mentioned. This is an area where the law has adapted. Two aspects here. The first, which applies to "in charge" more generally is that decided cases have relaxed what amounts to being in charge. The original stuff was all based on horse-drawn transport where the driver had an ongoing responsibility for the horse(s.) More recent decisions have tended to be on the lines that a properly parked vehicle can be left and many responsibilities left with it. There's also a specific breathalyser / in charge defence, based on the driver having no intention of driving while they remain over the limit. That was intended to protect people who went out for a drink and decided they'd be best not driving home but it has been exploited.
reohn2
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by reohn2 »

pwa wrote:A few days back I was driving along one of the lanes that lead into our village and as I approached a crossroads a car in front just stopped, in the middle of the carriageway, for no apparent reason. I passed on the right and as I did so I looked at the driver out of curiosity and saw he was on the phone. Not only that, he was a minister in HM's Government. I'm not saying which one, but I live in Wales. He had a parking space immediately to his left but could not risk missing his call so had stopped in the middle of the road. Maybe I should be glad that at least he knew to stop. Never liked him much, anyway.


Did you report him to the police?
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pwa
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by pwa »

thirdcrank wrote:
pwa wrote:A friend of mine was prosecuted for using his phone whilst driving, but was stationary and parked at the time. He had the engine running and that seemed to be enough. He was driving a van with a refrigeration unit and was trying to get the freezer back down its target temperature after a delivery, so the engine running did not signify an intention to move off with phone in hand. But he got the points anyway.


An individual case like that gives an idea of the way things are being enforced, but it's not definitive unless the person involved appealed on the grounds that they were not driving. The fixed penalty system pretty much depends on the majority of defendants opting for the most straightforward option. For somebody willing and (financially) able to give it ago. I'd have thought that that didn't count as driving, if they could demonstrate that they were well and truly parked. A breathalyser case in those circumstances might be less easy to defend.

Breath testing takes me to "in charge" which others have mentioned. This is an area where the law has adapted. Two aspects here. The first, which applies to "in charge" more generally is that decided cases have relaxed what amounts to being in charge. The original stuff was all based on horse-drawn transport where the driver had an ongoing responsibility for the horse(s.) More recent decisions have tended to be on the lines that a properly parked vehicle can be left and many responsibilities left with it. There's also a specific breathalyser / in charge defence, based on the driver having no intention of driving while they remain over the limit. That was intended to protect people who went out for a drink and decided they'd be best not driving home but it has been exploited.


Yes.I did ask my friend why he didn't challenge it. I would have challenged it if it had been me. A properly parked vehicle, with the handbrake on, poses no hazard to anyone, whether the engine is running or not. Some people run the engine whilst parked to keep warm. Are they committing an offence by using the phone? A bit of common sense is needed here.
pwa
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by pwa »

reohn2 wrote:
pwa wrote:A few days back I was driving along one of the lanes that lead into our village and as I approached a crossroads a car in front just stopped, in the middle of the carriageway, for no apparent reason. I passed on the right and as I did so I looked at the driver out of curiosity and saw he was on the phone. Not only that, he was a minister in HM's Government. I'm not saying which one, but I live in Wales. He had a parking space immediately to his left but could not risk missing his call so had stopped in the middle of the road. Maybe I should be glad that at least he knew to stop. Never liked him much, anyway.


Did you report him to the police?


No. I haven't mentioned it to anyone until now. He was undoubtedly committing an offence, but he had at least decided that he had to stop the car to answer the phone, and whilst his car was in an odd position it was not a danger.
thirdcrank
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by thirdcrank »

pwa wrote: ... Yes.I did ask my friend why he didn't challenge it. I would have challenged it if it had been me. A properly parked vehicle, with the handbrake on, poses no hazard to anyone, whether the engine is running or not. Some people run the engine whilst parked to keep warm. Are they committing an offence by using the phone? A bit of common sense is needed here.


Having just read your tale about the MP, I suspect that had they attracted official attention, that's just the line they themselves would have taken. The cases taken to appeal are not necessarily those with most merit and even less common sense: if there's waggle room, somebody with the £££ will wriggle. I used the expression "well and truly parked" but that's hardly a legal term.

Let's agree that driving along, whether moving or stationary in traffic phone use should be banned. The issue then is at what point after stopping does the driver stop being the driver? The end of the journey is obvious, but stopping merely to take a call is more of a problem, since although they are probably safer stationary than driving, their judgment on what is OK will be influenced by things like the pressing need to answer the phone.

It's obvious to me that a lot of drivers must think that if they are not actually moving, it doesn't matter what they are doing, including texting.
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PS
Just found this on the news of a bin lorry driver on the move while on the phone after being requested to desist by a passenger, which shows how brazen some are. I'd also have said that with colleagues working round the vehicle with potentially dangerous machinery, that's not a place for a phone, even with the vehicle stationary.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-le ... e-38808255
thirdcrank
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by thirdcrank »

Some forum members have suggested from time to time that insurance companies are the key to this. Here's an article in the personal finance bit of yesterday's Daily T. The headline is a bit misleading, in that the technology involved only concerns certain policies which offer discounts for younger drivers who can use it to show they have good driving habits, but the underlying message is that insurers don't like people who drive while distracted.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/insurance/ca ... -make-pay/
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mjr
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Re: Deterring mobile phone use

Post by mjr »

Isn't a bin lorry driver on the phone rather unusual and not much more dangerous than the frequent interactions with the vehicle-mount computer that tells them which house to collect from next? OK, they're told not to press it while moving, but the screen doesn't lock then AFAICT and I suspect it's much much harder to keep to target if you don't respond to it immediately. Welcome to the privatised waste collection world... :-(
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