Call me Draconian if you like, but I don’t think the proposed legislation goes far enough 
I hate these infernal devices, they’re a plague on modern life, both when people are behind the wheel and just generally destroying the fabric of society by eliminating real interactions between real people
Zac_A:
Call me Draconian if you like, but I don’t think the proposed legislation goes far enough
I hate these infernal devices, they’re a plague on modern life, both when people are behind the wheel and just generally destroying the fabric of society by eliminating real interactions between real people
Whilst I agree with some of your sentiments the problem remains how can drivers communicate with an external source when it is important. The only mode you can’t. We can talk to bloody submarines but not a driver, odd.
You can’t press buttons on a phone, but it is alright to faff around in a new Merc trying to put the lights on via an inter active screen.
Absolutey nuts. The whole thing is a mess manifested by loads and loads of stupid people that has brought us all to this.
Yet you can use a two-way radio and hold the mike? But if stuck in a traffic jam caused by an accident you can’t tell someone you are safe because ‘you are still driving’. Absolutey ridiculous.
Hands free calls using controls on a steering wheel or a bluetooth headset are still legal, I think that’s more than enough connectivity. Plus you can still phone people when you’re stationary.
Zac_A:
Hands free calls using controls on a steering wheel or a bluetooth headset are still legal, I think that’s more than enough connectivity. Plus you can still phone people when you’re stationary.
Not really. You get in another truck, can’t pair your phone etc, etc. Only phone when PARKED UP, not stationary. Read the consultation. Comms are bad if you are a driver.
Can broaden the offence as much as they want unless there is someone to enforce then it’s just a waste of time
What worries me more is the number of lorry drivers who now seem to think it’s acceptable to drive down the road staring at a tablet either watching Youtube or Netflix or browsing Facebook. One driver from Damac on the M18 yesterday morning during the rush hour was driving along with an iPad Pro sized tablet on his steering wheel staring at it as he veered between L1 and the hard shoulder and kept speeding up and slowing down to as low as 40MPH with nothing in front of him.
Here’s a curveball for the neurotically easily shocked…
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that making/receiving a call is dangerous, hands free or NOT… 
Mainly because I don’t just roll over and readily believe everything I am told…especially if it is included in a campaign to drum something into me to make me believe it…Goebbles style.
We all did it for years before the campaign to convince everybody you were suddenlly overnight the biggest criminal since Sutcliffe if you practiced it, but the incompetent, the inept, and the cack handed just went and ■■■■■■ the job up…as they do everything else.
Those that were incapable of doing 2 things at once,.despite being naturally programmed to do as (normal) human beings should be able to.
No more dangerous than listening to radio, or talking to a passenger, I reckon, as for one hand off the wheel, that is how I do most of my driving tbh…shock horror .
However I don’t use a phone other than hands free, because of the authorities banning it, and the brainwashed and gullible believing and self policing the hype, so I ain’t stupid I don’t want points on my clean licence.
As for texting,.watching a screen etc,.that is a different ball game I reckon, that is the thing they should concentrate on.
After saying that,.cab phones were the first nail in the coffin towards making this job a surveillance based crock of ■■■■, so given the choice I’d prefer to go back to the days without them, but the genie is out of the bottle.
Sand Fisher:
Only phone when PARKED UP, not stationary.
My bad, posting too quickly, that is what I meant to write.
robroy:
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that making/receiving a call is dangerous, hands free or NOT…
Mainly because I don’t just roll over and readily believe everything I am told…
Neither do I. There’s no shortage of scientific research clearly indicating that mobile use behind the wheel impairs driving ability, and as Neil DeGrasse Tyson has said: “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
robroy:
Here’s a curveball for the neurotically easily shocked…
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that making/receiving a call is dangerous, hands free or NOT…
Mainly because I don’t just roll over and readily believe everything I am told…especially if it is included in a campaign to drum something into me to make me believe it…Goebbles style.We all did it for years before the campaign to convince everybody you were suddenlly overnight the biggest criminal since Sutcliffe if you practiced it, but the incompetent, the inept, and the cack handed just went and [zb] the job up…as they do everything else.
Those that were incapable of doing 2 things at once,.despite being naturally programmed to do as (normal) human beings should be able to.
No more dangerous than listening to radio, or talking to a passenger, I reckon, as for one hand off the wheel, that is how I do most of my driving tbh…shock horror .However I don’t use a phone other than hands free, because of the authorities banning it, and the brainwashed and gullible believing and self policing the hype, so I ain’t stupid I don’t want points on my clean licence.
As for texting,.watching a screen etc,.that is a different ball game I reckon, that is the thing they should concentrate on.After saying that,.cab phones were the first nail in the coffin towards making this job a surveillance based crock of [zb], so given the choice I’d prefer to go back to the days without them, but the genie is out of the bottle.
Spot on.
Zac_A:
Sand Fisher:
Only phone when PARKED UP, not stationary.My bad, posting too quickly, that is what I meant to write.
OK. But you see that’s what is so daft because there are so many brain dead morons driving these days we cant be allowed to use your loaves.
It’s one thing ringing up at 70mph with a hh phone, another ringing the missus when you are 270th in a 6 mile traffic jam going nowhere soon. Both would get you a fine.
Zac_A:
Neither do I. There’s no shortage of scientific research clearly indicating that mobile use behind the wheel impairs driving ability, and as Neil DeGrasse Tyson has said: “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
And there’s a joint study done with Carnegie Mellor and University College London that analysed accident statistics in the USA. It looked at the accident rate in the hour before and the hour after the vast majority of mobile networks in the USA go onto free calls, I believe its 8pm. It found no increase in the accident rate despite a large increase in the number of mobile calls.
Whilst it may impair driving ability that doesn’t automatically mean it’s going to cause accidents. If it was a case that using them was so bad then can you explain that why over the last 20 years that mobile phone ownership and use has increased several thousand times, that we have over 10 million more cars and we drive hundreds of millions of miles a year more that accident rates have actually decreased over that time?
The figures don’t support the claims just like they don’t for speeding.
It was only a couple of years ago the police were forced to admit that speeding doesn’t cause as many accidents as they claimed it did when ONS figures for accident causation were released showing that speeding was only a contributory factor in just 5% of accidents. In fact inappropriate speed, where you’re below the limit but too fast for the conditions, was a larger percentage and the biggest percentage of all was driver error at 49%. Yet given all the enforcement and campaigning you’d think it was the other way around.
Zac_A:
robroy:
I don’t subscribe to the opinion that making/receiving a call is dangerous, hands free or NOT…
Mainly because I don’t just roll over and readily believe everything I am told…Neither do I. There’s no shortage of scientific research clearly indicating that mobile use behind the wheel impairs driving ability, and as Neil DeGrasse Tyson has said: “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.”
If ‘‘they’’ want to ram something home to the great unwashed, they can cherry pick any number of scientific THEORIES around research to make it fit their point.
If you want to believe them all mate, then that’s up to you.
I’ll just continue to remain sceptical and cynical on it all.
To take my point to the absolute extreme…there used to be ‘scientific’ research and theories in the 30s to ‘prove’ racial inferiority, to prove a certain group’s point, it didn’t mean they were true. 
This has all been discussed many times and we all have different opinions but no matter how good you are rob talking on a phone can and will disturb your concentration.
Some more than others of course but nobody should be saying it never has any effect because it definitely does. 
jakethesnake:
This has all been discussed many times and we all have different opinions but no matter how good you are rob talking on a phone can and will disturb your concentration.
Some more than others of course but nobody should be saying it never has any effect because it definitely does.
Therefore…
Speaking in vehicles between passengers and driver should also be outlawed?
The practice of driver commentary in police vehicles and other training scenarios should also be banned?
Operation of hand held microphones such as CB radios and walky-talky radios should be made an offence?
jakethesnake:
This has all been discussed many times and we all have different opinions but no matter how good you are rob talking on a phone can and will disturb your concentration.
Some more than others of course but nobody should be saying it never has any effect because it definitely does.
Yeh we have,.and maybe it does disturb concentration but so does everything else done whilst driving.
Your usual point is we should all concentrate 100%+ on our driving, and drive for 9 hours textbook style, like some kind of robot…
Physically and humanly impossible, fact.
To take it further, in reality do you really NEED to concentrate 100% literally?
Multi tasking is a natural asset to being human, so as long as you maintain a suitable and satisfactory level of concentration, what is the problem with holding a phone, no different to your mind wandering when listening to a talking book say, you have still managed to drive 50 miles safely, proven by not remembering passing landmarks like MSAs on autopilot, and safely, proven by the fact you ain’t ran over the top of somebody.
I do get your point btw, but as usual I am just questioning the official line, that most just seem to swallow…on every bloody thing. …
#keepthingsreal.
(I am not including the inept d/head contingent with licences among us in my point either, you can never legislate for that lot.)
robroy:
jakethesnake:
This has all been discussed many times and we all have different opinions but no matter how good you are rob talking on a phone can and will disturb your concentration.
Some more than others of course but nobody should be saying it never has any effect because it definitely does.Yeh we have,.and maybe it does disturb concentration but so does everything else done whilst driving.
Your usual point is we should all concentrate 100%+ on our driving, and drive for 9 hours textbook style, like some kind of robot…
Physically and humanly impossible, fact.To take it further, in reality do you really NEED to concentrate 100% literally?
Multi tasking is a natural asset to being human, so as long as you maintain a suitable and satisfactory level of concentration, what is the problem with holding a phone, no different to your mind wandering when listening to a talking book say, you have still managed to drive 50 miles safely, proven by not remembering passing landmarks like MSAs on autopilot, and safely, proven by the fact you ain’t ran over the top of somebody.
I do get your point btw, but as usual I am just questioning the official line, that most just seem to swallow…on every bloody thing.
#keepthingsreal.(I am not including the inept d/head contingent with licences among us in my point either, you can never legislate for that lot.)
I have never said you should concentrate 100% all of the time because as we know that’s not humanly possible. I have also never said to drive textbook style either but some drivers definitely do not concentrate enough whilst driving. Far too easily distracted. As for multi tasking it has been proved humans are not that good at it and from what I remember woman are better that men. 
My wife must be an exception because her driving is dreadful if she talks on a phone whilst driving. Thankfully that has now ended because she is too frightened to drive on the wrong side of the road and I ain’t no intention of showing her anything about it.
I get your point as well but I still think it’s not particularly wise to talk on a phone in certain situations when driving.
‘Real interactions with real people’ eh? Sorry, I’ve always thought this nonsense is utter crap. We can communicate and interact with more people in an average week now than people might have in a lifetime in years past. Communicating via a phone is no more or less real and when I was in hospital earlier this year unable to receive visitors my phone was a lifeline that saved my sanity. Well, what I have left. As for the law? No thoughts either way