Eyes in the back of your helmet?

[brit-bloke]

and yes,she was on her phone!

[Squeak the Rat]

The government has been looking at making it illegal to use mobile phones in cars without hands free kits. However, there is an issue: trucks, emergency services, fleet vehicles etc all use radio's, which are in effect mobile phones. It would be political suicide (and plain stupid) to ban these devices.

This has two problems in regards to writing legislation as I see it:

1. If using a mobile phone is in fact unsafe, then there should not be any exemptions just because it's used for a work purpose. Either it's safe or it's not.
2. If #1 is resolved (or ignored) the wording then needs to be precise so that radios are ok but traditional mobile phones are not. The problem with precise wording of legislation is that is easy to work around. Eg - are push to talk devices radio's or phones?

Not as simple to ban them as it sounds.......

[sunhuntin]

my first niggle i didnt listen too...resulted in the death of pup and numbness of my leg when a cow ran a stop sign. ive had a couple of smaller ones which im learning to listen to...mainly in result to a cop up ahead.
im ok within my home town, but roads im not used [ie, welly way] i get niggles constantly, for no apparent reason. but i am overly cautious down there, because i dont know exactly what the niggle is for.

[jazbug5]

The government has been looking at making it illegal to use mobile phones in cars without hands free kits. However, there is an issue: trucks, emergency services, fleet vehicles etc all use radio's, which are in effect mobile phones. It would be political suicide (and plain stupid) to ban these devices....

Forgive me if I am missing the point, but is there not a difference in that a device which is 'hands free' (radio or phone) involves less distraction from the main job of driving? I mean, texting while driving..? Peh!
Should be an instant roadside ban for that one, in my opinion.

[Squeak the Rat]

Phones aren't hands free - you hold it in your hand up to your ear?

And you can't say "texting is illegal" because "texting" does not have a legal definition. What is texting? And what differentiates texting from dialling a phone number - both are exactly the same process, look at phone hit buttons. So should it also be illegal to dial a number while driving? Etc etc etc.....

[jazbug5]

I thought you were saying that it wasn't possible to (specifically) make it illegal to use a mobile phone without a hands free kit (i.e. drive with one hand while holding the phone to your ear), because, for some reason, the legal distinction could not be made between the uses.

I obviously did get you wrong - it didn't seem to make much sense at the time..!

PS In my opinion both dialling and texting should be illegal, yes. Pull over if it's that bloody important, no?

[Squeak the Rat]

Sorry - I don't understand myself sometimes either. But I agree, and I often use it as an excuse not to make work calls when in the car

As for the "sixth sense" thing, I wonder whether it's the result of subconcious signals that the brain is receiving and processing. Eg change in noise, what other cars are doing etc etc etc that the brain sorts through in the background. Do people who are more situationally aware have more instances of the spidey sense?

Or is it some boogey woogey ESP thing?

Either way - it's saved my bacon on a number of occasions.

[James Deuce]

SA (situational awarenes) is learned. I think it should be compulsory for motorcyclists to read Robert Shaw.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/087...lance&n=283155

Goes into developing SA in detail.

I spend a lot more time checking 3, 6, and 9 than I used to. We're lucky - we only have to expend energy on SA in two dimensions.

As you have seen, my auto "check 9" saved me this morning.

Oddly, I've discovered that men are much better at object oriented SA than women. Men on the other hand don't really do emotional SA very well compared to women.

[Motu]

I thought women had intuition....

It's the same as ''making your own luck'' - you've got so much ''situation awareness'' (looks like we call it SA now acording to Jim2) going that the brain just can't consiously process it all....but it does.So we are sent urgent messages via the ether which we just ''pick up'' out of thin air...and respond to them.I believe we need to physicaly train the brain in these matters by showing it what we want it to look out for - then leaving it alone to deal with these things by itself while you deal with more day to day matters.If an urgent situation arises then the subconsious can give you a tap on the shoulder....or blow in you ear....

[Macktheknife]

I've had several instances where listening to that tingle meant avoiding tickets, accidents and other bad things. I've also had 2 incidents where I failed to pay attention to it, both times resulted in crashes. I tend to pay more attention now. lol

[Ixion]

Phones aren't hands free - you hold it in your hand up to your ear?

And you can't say "texting is illegal" because "texting" does not have a legal definition. What is texting? And what differentiates texting from dialling a phone number - both are exactly the same process, look at phone hit buttons. So should it also be illegal to dial a number while driving? Etc etc etc.....

Woof. My phone has voice activated dialing. and a hands free kit. I just sit there and yell "Miserable bastard", and it calls up my boss. Untouched by human hand - if you saw him you'd understand why no human hand would go near him.

[Quartida]

Now doesn't that just remind you of the Telecom ad for when they first introduced voice dialing?

"Now calling: The Old Bat."

[thehollowmen]

yeah I have similars all the time. I've got a compulsion to do mirror and head checks.

An intruder snuck up behind me on the one way signaled and pulled in to the right turn lane and sped up while I was signaling to go there. I did a head check and saw him, but if I hadn't I would have collected him.