Deterring mobile phone use

[reohn2]

I'm not sure if bigger penalties matter when no one thinks that they will get caught.

We can't enforce phones to shut off near engines because Android source code is published so it could be defeated relatively simply by simply upgrading your phone. I guess you could require phone makers to not allow upgrades but that's bad for security and a massive anticompetitive move and someone will import phones from countries without such daft restrictions.

Also, wouldn't it essentially break mobile phones used anywhere there are motorists, including the front rooms of loads of houses with front doors which open straight onto the street?

It needs detection in the form of more traffic police.
I'm no technophile but I suspect if any electronic device can be blocked on entering a vehicle,someone somewhere will find an electronic work around it.
Which brings us back to detection,or to be precise the interest the authorities have in detection,upto now that IMO has been lip service

[9494arnold]

Just a few things I've picked up from this (lengthy) post.
Firstly I am a retired Police Officer.
Please don't lynch me, I have been on a Driver Awareness Course ( Speeding , 34 in a 30 10.30pm Speed Camera since you ask) and whilst I didn't get the Points, the Cost to me for attending the course was equivalent to a fine.
The UK Legal System is based on a "Due Process" Model. This allows for the courts to assess the severity / culpability/within the offence and penalise accordingly .
Sadly much of what is happening in reality is actually "Negotiated Justice" : Fixed Penalty Sanctions and Driver Awareness being 2 prime examples.
(I do understand the Fiscal Impact taking everything to Court would have )
And I 100% endorse the view that Enforcement /Visible Prescence of Police on the Road is what's required, not just for Mobile Phones but for Road Policing in general. (and don't start me on investigating Historic Offences at vast expense
where the alleged perpetrator is already dead.)
I am sure there's some research that tells us that "hands free" is just as distracting as holding the phone (obviously not for texts)
You can make as many laws as you like . If there's no one enforcing them you are wasting your time.
The recent case of someone on an unbraked fixed wheel killing someone is a good case in point.
I doubt it was his first ever journey on the road on that bike. He wasn't in the wilds of the countryside so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to hope that he might have been apprehended at at very least advised about the transgression of the Brakes on pedal cycles regulations. Part of the swearing on process for the Police says
"The PREVENTION and detection of offences"
Just a couple of observations.

[PRL]

Advertised on the overhead messaging on the M74:

https://my.trafficscotland.org/

Isn't this an inducement for drivers to pick up the mobile to check on the traffic conditions down the road?

Just when you think that peak idiocy has been reached ....

[landsurfer]

I just get a nice map o the UK ?

[mjr]

I just get a nice map o the UK ?

It's different if you look at it while travelling

[thirdcrank]

... (and don't start me on investigating Historic Offences at vast expense
where the alleged perpetrator is already dead.) ....

I don't think people understand the effect of this on day-to-day policing, especially on uniform patrol, including "roads policing.".

There was a media report - probably earlier this year - where the CPS had brought to the attention of the police that the CPS role was restricted to prosecuting and so they would not be advising the police whether evidence gathered against a dead person would have been sufficient for a prosecution were they still alive. This would be a pretty good starting point for stopping (is that an oxymoron?) police investigations into alleged offending by the deceased. I'm not suggesting that there will never be grounds for investigating the activities of the dead, just that it's not necessarily an operational police matter. The possibility that somebody like a former prime minister may have had a dodgy side is serious, but whether it merits an investigation should not be the responsibility of an individual chief constable. Moreover, there's no reason IMO to divert police from policing to doing this research, for which there are plenty of others who would be capable of doing it. One benefit would be the clear identification of what it was costing.

[thirdcrank]

... (and don't start me on investigating Historic Offences at vast expense
where the alleged perpetrator is already dead.) ....

Forgive me for returning to this, with regard to a suspect who is not dead, but is now eighty and has been confined in secure mental hospitals since the early 1970's, when he was convicted of the sexually motivated killing of Shirley Boldy. He's undoubtedly been a nasty individual and was dubbed the Beast of Wombwell (not to be confused with the locally more famous Beast of Bolsover.) From time to time there's been outrage whenever there's been a suggestion he might be released Eg, this from 2010

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/c ... ing-269025

More recently, he's come to notice yet again and reading between the lines, this has come about through the reinvestigation of the murder of fouteen year old Elsie Frost in 1965. A previously unreported sex attack, dating from around the time of his manslaughter offence, has now been reported and investigated so Peter Pickering is on trial at Leeds Crown Court charged with rape and false imprisonment.

(With apologies here for the Daily Mail link which is the most detailed I could find. Search "Peter Pickering" for other reports.)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/art ... ipper.html

The trial judge is Mr Justice Goss, presiding judge of the North Eastern Circuit and a "Red Judge" not because of political affiliations but a High Court judge who deals only with murders and the most serious of other charges. Queen's Counsel lead for both sides and so on. There will have been a lot of work to get this to court.

This prosecution will not have been undertaken lightly, so I presume there's no other way of achieving whatever it is the DPP wants to achieve. Perhaps the legal system needs reviewing.

[SA_SA_SA]

Surely, texting while driving should result in an immediate ban, long enough to cause a sharp intake of breath, (no get outs). Humans are very slow to task switch between unrelated tasks, so its even worse than the obviously dangerous seconds where the driver is failing to keep a proper lookout.

[RichK]

... One of my hobbyhorses here is uninsured drivers, who, through the working of the insurance industry schemes meeting the tab, cost insured drivers huge sums annually. ....

When I looked into this about five years ago (having been hit by an uninsured rider of a motorbike), it was around £30 per person per year extra added on to your car insurance to cover that.

[thirdcrank]

Just to draw a line under my most recent post on this thread, having been recently convicted and remanded for medical reports before sentencing, the 80 year old defendant has died in hospital, apparently of natural causes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-so ... e-43533991

Cui bono?

[Mick F]

Just on a different forum {Fiat 500} chatting about a mobile phone hands free system problem.
https://www.fiatforum.com/500/458440-do ... -work.html


This comment seems to ring true.

I doubt it'll be all that long before none of this matters; following a few high profile accidents in which the use of handsfree mobile devices has been implicated, I can see a total ban coming on the non-emergency use of any kind of communication device by the driver of a moving vehicle. In today's 'blame culture' climate, if you are unfortunate enough to be involved in an accident in which someone loses their life and you were using a hands free mobile at the time, you'll likely be going to prison. It's enough reason for me to keep the phone switched off whilst in the car now; I won't even run a satnav app on it.

[pwa]

Just on a different forum {Fiat 500} chatting about a mobile phone hands free system problem.
https://www.fiatforum.com/500/458440-do ... -work.html


This comment seems to ring true.

I doubt it'll be all that long before none of this matters; following a few high profile accidents in which the use of handsfree mobile devices has been implicated, I can see a total ban coming on the non-emergency use of any kind of communication device by the driver of a moving vehicle. In today's 'blame culture' climate, if you are unfortunate enough to be involved in an accident in which someone loses their life and you were using a hands free mobile at the time, you'll likely be going to prison. It's enough reason for me to keep the phone switched off whilst in the car now; I won't even run a satnav app on it.

I use satnav a lot now, but not on a phone. And I do think hands free is a pretty effective distraction at times when the driver needs to concentrate on what is happening on the road.

[thirdcrank]

The trend is in the wrong direction in that shunting another vehicle without strong evidence of some additional offending or self-distraction is increasingly considered OK, when it isn't.

[Mick F]

We had a Fiat500 and that's why I frequent the forum.
They have a voice activated system on the 500. All you do is press a button on the steering wheel and the car asks you what you want.
You say, "Telephone" and then the car asks you to say the name you want to ring. The car does it, and when you want to hang up, you press the button again. Simple and easy.

We now have a Toyota Yaris, but you have to press a touch sensitive screen to select the person/number you want to ring. The screen is in the centre of the car, so you need to take your eyes off the road.
Not good at all IMHO.

Neither system is good, but the voice activated Fiat500 Blue&Me system is ok.

[AlaninWales]

Just on a different forum {Fiat 500} chatting about a mobile phone hands free system problem.
https://www.fiatforum.com/500/458440-do ... -work.html


This comment seems to ring true.

I doubt it'll be all that long before none of this matters; following a few high profile accidents in which the use of handsfree mobile devices has been implicated, I can see a total ban coming on the non-emergency use of any kind of communication device by the driver of a moving vehicle. In today's 'blame culture' climate, if you are unfortunate enough to be involved in an accident in which someone loses their life and you were using a hands free mobile at the time, you'll likely be going to prison. It's enough reason for me to keep the phone switched off whilst in the car now; I won't even run a satnav app on it.

Nothing to do with "today's 'blame culture'" at all: If you "are involved in an accident in which someone loses their life" (for which I read if you drive into someone and they die) and distraction of any kind can be shown, then you were driving without due care and attention. Now there is an offence of causing death by such - and that is the only change (apart from the fact that juries are unwilling to convict, which I believe has gradually grown as a problem as driving has become normalised).