Lorry driver given four year sentence after fatal

jakethesnake:
One thing that always confuses me is why holding a phone to your ear can cause an accident?

Well that would depend on how much you believe the research is relivent to real World situation, I’ve read the TRL research paper much of the headlines were based on.

They used a car simulator and asked those taking part to drive various routes, then measured speed, accuracy and reaction times, of them while driving without distractions, while using hands free, while using a hand held mobile and while just drunk enough to fail a breath test.

So far so good,

But they didn’t get them to have a chat with a mate, instead thrh were asked to do mental arithmetic problems, repeat complex sentences and surprise, surprise, it appears its quite difficult to do.

I would have liked to see another group tested generally talking ■■■■ with a mate, apparently this wasn’t done as you can’t quantify the results, but surely as a comparison against the others tests it could have been quantified.

In this case although the driver had been talking for 20 minutes, just before the collision he was dialing a number, which no doubt had taken both his eyes and attention from the road ahead.

As for mobile phone use while driving generally, well it seems to be an epidemic, driving a LHD truck I see them on their phone checking social media, etc, as I pass them because they’ve slowed down so much while doing it.