Yeah it must be terribly distracting for lorry drivers having to calculate the group budget, decide whether to buy out HSBC, or recall the launch codes for the latest missile we’re going to shoot metaphorically our own foot with, just as we’re about to negotiate the Hemel magic roundabout in our automatic lorry.
Juddian:
Yeah it must be terribly distracting for lorry drivers having to calculate the group budget, decide whether to buy out HSBC, or recall the launch codes for the latest missile we’re going to shoot metaphorically our own foot with, just as we’re about to negotiate the Hemel magic roundabout in our automatic lorry.
all of what you suggest would be a walk in the park … but how do you cope if it is the misses trying to decide on what shade of apple blossom white for the hall paint … and you will have time to do it on Sunday, won’t you…
Bluey Circles:
Juddian:
Yeah it must be terribly distracting for lorry drivers having to calculate the group budget, decide whether to buy out HSBC, or recall the launch codes for the latest missile we’re going to shoot metaphorically our own foot with, just as we’re about to negotiate the Hemel magic roundabout in our automatic lorry.all of what you suggest would be a walk in the park … but how do you cope if it is the misses trying to decide on what shade of apple blossom white for the hall paint … and you will have time to do it on Sunday, won’t you…
Nope, she just rings Tommy who does our painting and decorating… 
albion1971:
You don’t have a conversation with the radio do you norb?
I frequently have a good argument with the smarmy condescending mealy mouthed English cow that talks to me from the satnav…il turn when im good and ready to turn,not because your telling me to,ya cow… 
double manning,having to listen to your misses yakking when your driving,basically passengers of any kind,double maning,radio,music,where do you draw the line…they will just keep on and on since points means cash.
I am still a firm believer of my double sim phone…sim 1 to show plod that there was no calls at the time,and sim 2 for to use for calling anyway…
Whilst we’re at it, can we ban kids from cars too? Is there anything more distracting than screaming brats in the back seat! And don’t get me started on people who take their eyes off the road to locate a lost dummy!
albion1971:
Passengers in a car have an idea what’s going on around them…What about two women in a car? Neither have any idea!
Only joking ladies.
I know that was a joke, but have you seen people in a car engrossed in conversation, all parties very distracted from the road ahead.
Personally the mobile phone thing is flavour of the month, and maybe the government are trying to change actions, but when you look at the Contributory fact stats, maybe they could spend some time and money targeting other factors.
From Department for Transport statistics for Contributory Factors 2014:
These are the factors given to incidents from Police offers investigating them.
Driver using mobile phone, 21 Fatal 84 Serious injury. (I assume this includes all mobile phone use as there is no split for Hand held/hands Free/ texting etc.)
Fatigue, 48 Fatal 400 Serious Injury (No separate law but dealt with by due care and attention, )
Unfamiliar with model of vehicle, 19 Fatal 182 Serious Injury (Just found it a bit bizarre, no idea how it could be dealt with though)
Driver/Rider nervous, uncertain or panic, 23 Fatal 219 Serious injury ( a case for better, more training, maybe?)
Too close to cyclist, horse rider or pedestrian 21 Fatal 314 Serious Injury (no campaign on telly and media interest in this one)Maybe some Jaywalking laws might help?
Pedestrian failed to look properly 192 fatal 2508 Serious injury
Pedestrian wrong use of pedestrian crossing facility, 21 fatal 247 Serous Injury
Pedestrian wearing dark clothing at night, 61 Fatal 266 Serious injury
Pedestrian impaired by alcohol 72 Fatal 504 Serious Injuryand by far the biggest factor.
Driver/Rider failed to look properly 379 Fatal 25% of all fatal accidents, 6689 Serious injury 37% of all serious accidents
(but no big campaign to address the issue or separate law.)
Of course they can put all the points they want on using a hand held phone, but it won’t make any difference while drivers get away with it because there are no police patrols left to catch them.
As for increase the points for truck drivers I believe the TC already take a dim view on the subject and have been revoking HGV licences for quite a while, but i still hasn’t stopped.
Anything distracting is…you know what (distracting). “The proposals, which are part of the government’s Road Safety Plan, are aimed at targeting those who repeatedly offend.” Only a fool doesn’t learn from his mistakes so they deserve to be punished IMO.
Captain Caveman 76:
Whilst we’re at it, can we ban kids from cars too? Is there anything more distracting than screaming brats in the back seat! And don’t get me started on people who take their eyes off the road to locate a lost dummy!
Distraction in vehicle, 68 Fatal, 445 Serious injury. Yep children are probably far more of an issue than phones.
Distraction outside vehicle, 19 Fatal, 206 Serious Injury.
Basically if you’re the type of person to be distracted by a phone call, you’ll probably be distracted by many other factors and maybe shouldn’t be driving.
albion1971:
This has been discussed many times and hands free definitely has an effect on peoples driving depending on the level of conversation.
I have seen it first hand many times. It should and will become illegal.
Talking to someone can have the same effect as well. It drops the level of concentration without a doubt.
Let’s face it drivers lose concentration without talking so what chance have they got when doing it.
Before my firm outlawed the use of hands free whilst driving it was bloody alarming on how it effected my driving.
After I’d ended a call, I would realise that I couldn’t recall the last couple of miles of road I’d driven over.
Anyone who says it doesn’t effect their concentration whilst driving is talking BS.
Driving requires 100% of your attention.
muckles:
Captain Caveman 76:
Whilst we’re at it, can we ban kids from cars too? Is there anything more distracting than screaming brats in the back seat! And don’t get me started on people who take their eyes off the road to locate a lost dummy!Distraction in vehicle, 68 Fatal, 445 Serious injury. Yep children are probably far more of an issue than phones.
Distraction outside vehicle, 19 Fatal, 206 Serious Injury.
Basically if you’re the type of person to be distracted by a phone call, you’ll probably be distracted by many other factors and maybe shouldn’t be driving.
So are you saying that a phone call needn’t be distracting if you are a some how superior driver to most others?? 
Its got nothing to do with being some how better at dealing with distraction than the next bloke!
Its about being human and humans can and will be distracted, end of!
I know a couple of train drivers who drive HST’s to London at upto 125 mph. The cabs now are fitted with a device that can detect and record wether any media device is actually switched on in the cab, letalone being used!
So by that it is recognised that even the most highly trained, highly monitored and professional drivers on land based transport can be distracted so ALL risks from such have been removed from the job of driving!
ROG:
xichrisxi You have totally missed the point
Indeed and a poor argument that’s been done to bloody death and has no resemblance to yapping on a phone!
Gembo:
albion1971:
This has been discussed many times and hands free definitely has an effect on peoples driving depending on the level of conversation.
I have seen it first hand many times. It should and will become illegal.
Talking to someone can have the same effect as well. It drops the level of concentration without a doubt.
Let’s face it drivers lose concentration without talking so what chance have they got when doing it.Before my firm outlawed the use of hands free whilst driving it was bloody alarming on how it effected my driving.
A lot depends on what type of work your company is involved with. If your days work is already planned out, there is no need to be able to contact the driver. If however your work is constantly changing as with say pallet network, where delivery addresses change, or collections are added and they need you to collect something else before you leave the area, then unfortunately the phone becomes a necessary evil. Then into the mix you have these companies that deliberately give customers the drivers phone number so they can chase up their delivery (which personally I’d like to see made illegal).
Then you have agency drivers like myself that perhaps have one or two short phone calls per week, advising me of the next day, or next week’s work. If I don’t answer promptly, then as with most agency drivers, they’ll just call the next name on the list and I’ll be without work. Three guesses as to why I wouldn’t let that happen. Same scenario happens with sales reps and business folks, if the customer can’t get an immediate response, they will just go elsewhere. All part of the instant response world we live in nowadays.
Personally, I think some of the alternating shift start times, especially very early morning 2am type ones that endlessly disrupt drivers sleep patterns, are far more of a danger to other road users. Tired drivers and HGV’s are a lethal combination.
Gembo:
muckles:
Captain Caveman 76:
Whilst we’re at it, can we ban kids from cars too? Is there anything more distracting than screaming brats in the back seat! And don’t get me started on people who take their eyes off the road to locate a lost dummy!Distraction in vehicle, 68 Fatal, 445 Serious injury. Yep children are probably far more of an issue than phones.
Distraction outside vehicle, 19 Fatal, 206 Serious Injury.
Basically if you’re the type of person to be distracted by a phone call, you’ll probably be distracted by many other factors and maybe shouldn’t be driving.So are you saying that a phone call needn’t be distracting if you are a some how superior driver to most others??
Its got nothing to do with being some how better at dealing with distraction than the next bloke!
Its about being human and humans can and will be distracted, end of!
I know a couple of train drivers who drive HST’s to London at upto 125 mph. The cabs now are fitted with a device that can detect and record wether any media device is actually switched on in the cab, letalone being used!
So by that it is recognised that even the most highly trained, highly monitored and professional drivers on land based transport can be distracted so ALL risks from such have been removed from the job of driving!
Excellent post Gembo and all so very true.
Captain Caveman 76:
And don’t get me started on people who take their eyes off the road to locate a lost dummy!
But I can’t concentrate and drive properly without one! 
Jesus, you’d think we were piloting formula one racing cars in a grand prix.
Do you really think we would be covering mulitiple million miles over the years, holding the wheel in a vice like grip and putting every sense into it for every moment of our working day, the way some of you carry on the average driver would be knackered in a couple of hours and completely burned out in about the same timescale said grand pricks drivers trouser £20million+ to retire on.
Not for the first time am i glad to only have a few years left.
Gembo:
muckles:
Captain Caveman 76:
Whilst we’re at it, can we ban kids from cars too? Is there anything more distracting than screaming brats in the back seat! And don’t get me started on people who take their eyes off the road to locate a lost dummy!Distraction in vehicle, 68 Fatal, 445 Serious injury. Yep children are probably far more of an issue than phones.
Distraction outside vehicle, 19 Fatal, 206 Serious Injury.
Basically if you’re the type of person to be distracted by a phone call, you’ll probably be distracted by many other factors and maybe shouldn’t be driving.So are you saying that a phone call needn’t be distracting if you are a some how superior driver to most others??
Its got nothing to do with being some how better at dealing with distraction than the next bloke!
Its about being human and humans can and will be distracted, end of!
I know a couple of train drivers who drive HST’s to London at upto 125 mph. The cabs now are fitted with a device that can detect and record wether any media device is actually switched on in the cab, letalone being used!
So by that it is recognised that even the most highly trained, highly monitored and professional drivers on land based transport can be distracted so ALL risks from such have been removed from the job of driving!
I don’t know about the superior bit but I find I zone out of a phone call not out of what’s going on, on the road, I do the same with passengers in the vehicle, I can miss whole segments of conversation, because I’m concentrating on driving. I also don’t have lengthy conversations it’s a simple question and an answer or I deal with it when I stop.
And as for your Train drivers example, I know racing drivers who manage to get down the Mulsanne straight in the dark at 200mph looking out for slow GT cars in front and avoiding the far quicker LMP1 cars coming up from behind and also talking with the engineers and adjusting engine settings. So many people can deal with a high workload situation and also deal with driving;
It’s a question of focus, sometimes they don’t reply straight away because they are busy.
They’ll have to ban radios too. I almost hit a cyclist when retuning my radio. I’ll try harder next time!
So many people can deal with a high workload situation and also deal with driving;
I would like to know how you believe that statement because from what I have seen it is exactly the opposite.Simply
because the average driver cannot focus.
Jesus, you’d think we were piloting formula one racing cars in a grand prix.
Really. Surely they cannot cause so much damage as a heavy truck with a driver that is distracted by talking on a phone.
F1 drivers have to achieve high levels of concentration at high speeds for a whole race. They are all going in the same direction and have many safety aspects both in the car and trackside alongside highly trained medical teams.They also have to go through far tougher training than any lorry driver and are far more skillful.
A complacent truck driver that thinks he is capbable of talking on the phone without it effecting his or her concentration is surely a bigger risk on our busy roads especially with all the other brain dead drivers around them.
Just look at how many F1 drivers have died to the number of road drivers.
albion1971:
Jesus, you’d think we were piloting formula one racing cars in a grand prix.They also have to go through far tougher training than any lorry driver and are far more skillful.
Do you know how a racing driver gets to F1?