Lorry driver given four year sentence after fatal

Franglais:

muckles:

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 [zb] 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.

Chatting with a mate about your weekend plans, cruising on a boring m-way is one thing.
Office calling to change delivery address when you’re in a town centre is summat else.
Driving in dense fog on a strange road, when your missus calls to say she’s run off with the milkman is different again.

It was part of my point and how the research seemed to constructed to find the answer they wanted and then how the media and pressure groups take the results that suit their agenda to create the headlines without providing any critical feedback. Not only in this but many other things, recently had the one about eating red and processed meat increasing cancer risks, the headlines were made it out to be a great risk, but a group looking at the same research through a staticians eye has quantified the risk, too much criticism from groups with there own agenda who leapt on the original research headlines to back their cause.

Those examples you give could also apply without a phone call, I’ve seen people so engrossed in conversation with their passengers that they had no knowledge of what was going on around them, plenty of people get into vehicle and drive having heard bad news, (or good, unless you feel sorry for the milkman :laughing:) many years ago I was involved in a full scale business meeting in a car driven by my then boss, who whilst driving flat out up the A1 kept turning round to get my opinion, we were trying to save our biggest contract and were going to a crunch meeting with Yorkshire Water, I gave some very quick answers.