Use of mobile phones: UK versus NZ legislation

[ceebie13]

The UK authorities are about to up the anti on the use of mobile phones in cars. Not only are they about to increase the penalties for using hand-held phones (now to be £60 plus three points on your licence) but they are also about to prosecute those who have been found to be using a hands-free phone at the time of an accident.

Quote: "Inspector Douglas Kirkham, from Lothian and Borders Road Policing Branch, warned drivers could be prosecuted if they were using a hands-free or Bluetooth kit. He said: "If while making or having a conversation, even if you're using a Bluetooth, you are not in proper control of your vehicle, then an offence has still been committed."

AA public affairs head of road safety Andrew Howard said: "Police can trace back on phone call records to establish use during a journey that ended in a crash."

Two points to raise here: Firstly, when will the NZ authorities finally wise up and follow suit regarding hand held phones?

And secondly, how the hell can you say that you are not in control of your vehicle and therefore have committed an offence if you are "...having a conversation" using hands-free/bluetooth devices?? Does that mean I'm committing an offence if I talk to passengers in my car? Can anyone please explain to me the difference between talking to someone sitting next to me and talking to an inanimate object bolted to the dashboard.

It reminds me of the crazy story of the guy that got busted in the UK for eating a friggin' Mars bar while driving!!

Methinks the law is an ass that has gone totally mad!

[John Banks]

I find that quite odd. Using a bluetooth headset is probably safer than talking to your passengers in the car. At least with the hands free kit, you're not going to be looking at them every so often.

[Wasp]

I get what you mean with the device vs someone actually in the car

BUT

I think its a good idea - driving a vehicle is just that, talking on the phone can wait unless its an emergency

[ceebie13]

I get what you mean with the device vs someone actually in the car

BUT

I think its a good idea - driving a vehicle is just that, talking on the phone can wait unless its an emergency

You still haven't shown me the difference between talking to a passenger or talking to the phone on the dash. By your token, am I supposed to ignore other occupants in my car "unless it's an emergency"?

[Biohazard]

I do believe they said that if the driver is found driving irractically whilst using a bluetooth or any other hands free device then they will be prosecuted and not everyone who uses handfree...

And the bloke with a mars bar, you will find he was cought due to one hand on the wheel whilst driving, only exceptions are changing gear, touching OE installed equipment, picking ya nose and flipping the bird to other drivers :love:

[davereid]

I find texting while driving a little distracting, especially on my scooter. Maybe I need lighter weight gloves to make it a little easier ?

[Dave Lobster]

What a waste of time and money. Changing the law in the UK to make it illegal in the first place was a waste of time. The law is totally unenforceable. There aren't enough policemen to have one on every corner to catch people.

Changing the law in this country would be a waste of time too.

Unless you change the law to stop people:
Talking to passengers
Shouting at children in the back seat
Eating
Drinking
Driving with one hand on the wheel
Smoking
etc.

How much would it cost to put such a dumbass law through parliament here? Whose money is that?
Everyone has to stamp on it. Its the thin end of the wedge.

[Cajun]

i remember watching something other week

where they tested people on phones, and people inside car

advange of talking to someone in the car, they can see if some corners are coming up or something dangours so stop talking, where person on cellphone does not see this and keeps talking to you.

or something along those sorta lines not to sure where i saw it tho

[NinjaNanna]

advange of talking to someone in the car, they can see if some corners are coming up or something dangours so stop talking, where person on cellphone does not see this and keeps talking to you.

Exactly what I was going to say. The act of conversation is distracting. You must conceded that if you are talking on the phone whilst driving you will unlikely be able to recall most of the journey once you have arrived.

Basically your subconcience is controlling your driving. Probably not the best state to be in.

[Mr Merde]

How much would it cost to put such a dumbass law through parliament here? Whose money is that?
....

You mean something like the Kyoto agreement that was going to cost us more than we received and other such idiotic expenses.

The government doesnt care how much it costs. Its not their money and they can always raise more through direct and indirect taxes.

[Filterer]

Can anyone please explain to me the difference between talking to someone sitting next to me and talking to an inanimate object bolted to the dashboard.

Don't make me find the studies but some have shown that it requires more concentration to converse with someone on a phone then in real life.

The reasons relating to phone calls losing a lot of the subtleties of speech so you have to concentrate more to interpret want someone is saying, also you loose visual clues which play a large part in human communication

Thirdly more often then not conversation in a car is idle chit chat to fill in the time, whereas a phone call has normally has a definite purpose which you must think about answers for.

Having said that I think bluetooth/wired headsets are fine.
Ive even answered my cell with my wired headset on my bike doing 80km/h on the motorway in rush hour traffic :scooter:

Edit: Also what Cajun said about passengers stopping talking when things get busy/hairy

[unhingedlizard]

Exactly what I was going to say. The act of conversation is distracting. You must conceded that if you are talking on the phone whilst driving you will unlikely be able to recall most of the journey once you have arrived.

Basically your subconcience is controlling your driving. Probably not the best state to be in.


I remember reading something about this that when you are on a phone part of your subconcouise is trying to picture what the other person looks like and is talking like while you are having the conversation. Pilots and such are much better at this as they are trained to do this type of thing.

[MisterD]

How much would it cost to put such a dumbass law through parliament here? Whose money is that?
Everyone has to stamp on it. Its the thin end of the wedge.

Exactly, especially considering there is already an offence of Driving without due care, which would seem to cover it already.

[Ixion]

No. There isn't. Only Careless Driving, which is a much higher tariff.

There used to be Driving Without Due Care and Attention. But it disappeared years ago. It should be reinstated.

[Dave Lobster]

Why did it disappear?

If there's already an offence that covers people doing stupid things while on the phone, why don't the police use their existing powers?
Would they be any more efficient with another law?
It hasn't worked in the UK. Why would it work here?

[Drunken Monkey]

Don't make me find the studies but some have shown that it requires more concentration to converse with someone on a phone then in real life.

Please do, I'm curious.

[scumdog]

You still haven't shown me the difference between talking to a passenger or talking to the phone on the dash. By your token, am I supposed to ignore other occupants in my car "unless it's an emergency"?

Normally the passenger will 'let you know' when you are about to plough into the rear of a logging truck. (or at least they will scream/stop talking)

The blabberer on Bluetooth won't.

But they'll hear YOUR screams/

[Dave Lobster]

Normally the passenger will 'let you know' when you are about to plough into the rear of a logging truck. (or at least they will scream/stop talking)



Even if there's three of them in the back seat, aged between two and five, screaming at each other?

I doubt that very much.

[MikeyG]

Unless you change the law to stop people:
Talking to passengers
Shouting at children in the back seat
Eating
Drinking
Driving with one hand on the wheel
Smoking
etc.

I was reading in a car mag that in aussie they have banned cellphones and smoking while driving.

[Ixion]

Normally the passenger will 'let you know' when you are about to plough into the rear of a logging truck. (or at least they will scream/stop talking)

The blabberer on Bluetooth won't.

But they'll hear YOUR screams/

I would be very interested to know if there is any evidence of that theory. I suspect it is an urban myth.

Firstly passengers are passengers. The most likely reason they are passengers is that they do not drive . And therefore will be very unlikely to observe driving hazards.

Even if the passenger does have a licence, the very fact of being a passenger means that they are unlikely to pay much attention to the road. You are arguing that the driver will be so distracted by the conversation as not to pay attention to traffic and road conditions. But the driver is talking to the passenger (by definition). So why will not the passenger be equally distracted ? Why would the driver de distracted by the conversation , but the passenger, the other half of the conversation, not be?

I see this all the time on the motorway with old women. The old woman driver will be nattering away, head turned to look at her passenger. The passenger will be nattering away also, head turned toward the driver. Neither is paying much attention to the road.

I think the theory of the "observant passenger" is a myth.Unless someone can produce some evidence.

And conversation with a person is IMHO much more distracting than converation on a phone, because it is very difficult to avoid looking for the body language cues that we rely on when talking to people. On a phone, there are none so it is less distracting.

[Filterer]

Please do, I'm curious.

here is a start
http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/motoring-tech/mg18725105.000

"While a car is moving, the strength of signal received by a driver's phone continually changes, and the phone often has to switch from one base station to another during a call. That causes a slight loss of sound quality, forcing the driver's brain to work harder to work out what the person at the other end is saying, say Takashi Hamada and colleagues at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tokyo, Japan."

..

"The researchers then played 11 volunteers an audio recording of a story that included similar interruptions. As the volunteers struggled to hear the distorted parts of the recording, their right parietal cortex, the part of the brain that perceives sound, became more active"

..

Previously, it was assumed that speaking to passengers was less distracting because they stop talking when the driver needs to concentrate.

[Dave Lobster]

"While a car is moving, the strength of signal received by a driver's phone continually changes, and the phone often has to switch from one base station to another during a call. That causes a slight loss of sound quality, forcing the driver's brain to work harder to work out what the person at the other end is saying, say Takashi Hamada and colleagues at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tokyo, Japan."

This may be true in Japan, as they use a different type of mobile phone there. But on GSM (used here, on Voda at least), this is not the case. There might be a slight loss of quality, but you'd need to be doing over 160mph to experience it. Unlikely that would be the case here.

[Fat Tony]

Eating
Drinking
Smoking


Those can now also be considered an offence in the UK, but as previously mentioned there's sod all traffic police left on the roads over here now (replaced by GATSO cameras) to enforce any of it.

Having said that, one guy got charged last year for drinking a cup of coffee while driving (though he was stationary at traffic lights when the police saw him)

[Dave Lobster]

Having said that, one guy got charged last year for drinking a cup of coffee while driving (though he was stationary at traffic lights when the police saw him)

Its criminal behaviour like that that's sending the country down the drain.

[MD]

Using hand held phones is definitely more dangerous than smoking or talking to pasengers. I've just bought one of those head sets with the mic on a boom over your mouth. Much better than fitting a car kit and now it's much easier to yap on the phone, while playing play station and changing the music and I'm still able to use my other hand to turn the page of the paper I'm reading. Bloody brilliant this mult-tasking while driving.