Casual Observer:
It absolutely astounds me , that on this site ,where more than enough evidence of muppet behaviour is shown , that posters still find reasons to excuse that behaviour .
Its not that at all. Its just that some of us have functioning brains and also tend to believe research which has been done and actual statistics rather than sound bites issued by authorities
It is exactly that .
As I posted there are many examples of muppet behaviour , I did not single out this one .
But , then again what would I know , apparently I must be one of those unlucky ones , who is unfortunate to be without a functioning brain
There has been a recent study done involving two leading universities, Carnegie Mellor in the USA and LSE here in England in regards to mobile phone usage when driving in the USA. Pretty much every single mobile phone network in the USA has completely free calls after 8pm - calls, not texts. They compared accident statistics all over the USA before and after that threshold and found no difference at all despite mobile phone networks data showing a massive spike in calls. Surely if using mobile phones was dangerous there would be a difference in accident rates either side of 8pm?
Wish you could get paid a bounty for every driver caught on a phone tablet or computer . I’d be on one hell of a day rate. With a remote camera stuck on your side window. With date and time stamp number plate the police could trace driver check phone records . Then pay you when driver was fined.
Until they start banning people for using their phones the problem is going to continue not just car drivers the amount of truck drivers i see as well.you can get a bluetooth for a £10.
my issue with this is still a, what business is it of the ■■■■■■■ biker? b, how can police prosecute on a video having done ■■■■ all? c, I have driven as stated before regular on the phone in a number of vehicles and not crashed, killed families, ended up off road etc.
all this does is makes us even more of a nanny state where you will have old codgers standing with speed cameras on top off motorways recording speeds and police prosecuting them and the likes.
and as with ‘brake’ etc statistics can be easily made to promote/deny whatever you want to argue, ( in the words of anchorman statistically it works 60% of the time everytime!).
war1974:
my issue with this is still a, what business is it of the [zb] biker? b, how can police prosecute on a video having done [zb] all? c, I have driven as stated before regular on the phone in a number of vehicles and not crashed, killed families, ended up off road etc.
but can drive perfectly fine whilst holding a conversation even if holding the phone, to me its no different than having a few sat in the car chatting away.
how many on here eat a sarnie or a mint or reach over to grab something whilst on the road? how many drive at 3am and are fully awake even though your body is screaming out that is should be in bed?
or do we also ban everyone who has only 1 hand from driving?
Statistics and data are often wrong look at the amount we should drink/what we should drink (red wine is good/ red wine is bad).
Personally I couldn’t care who reports anyone who use phones while driving. Having seen what was left of a van that was hit up the back by a wood lorry whose driver was having a conversation with his office and did not notice the traffic had stopped. Result one father killed outright. All because of someone being engrossed in a phone conversation. I would back a ban on phones in vehicles. Eddie.
erfguy:
Personally I couldn’t care who reports anyone who use phones while driving. Having seen what was left of a van that was hit up the back by a wood lorry whose driver was having a conversation with his office and did not notice the traffic had stopped. Result one father killed outright. All because of someone being engrossed in a phone conversation. I would back a ban on phones in vehicles. Eddie.
I normally agree with most things you write Eddie, but with this I have to disagree.
It is becoming a slippery slope where we can get prosecuted off the video / photo someone else has supplied.
As has been said, it could’ve been doctored, it could be 10yrs old, time and date stamps are ‘set’ when you set the clock.
People used to take the ■■■■ out of the Soviets and Chinese for being monitored and monitoring each other, yet we’re doing it now because it’s right?
Do you now report your neighbour for growing some weed? For not paying his TV licence? For his tax being out of date (I know you can’t easily see it now)?
Where do we draw the line?
To me it’s just a sign of the times, never happened years ago because we didn’t have the equipment then. There have always been do gooders around & always will be, the fact that this one uses a bike is irrelevant. I was reading a couple of weeks ago about a pedestrian that’s had over 30 drivers prosecuted for using phones while driving, just snaps them & sends them to the police.
As for using phones, or doing anything else while driving, you tend to get two groups. Group 1 sees no problem in it as they’ve done it for years with no problem.
Group 2 used to do it until someone they know was affected, by either doing it or by someone else doing it, and suffering as a consequence.
My take is simple, you know it’s illegal, wether you agree with it or not is irrelevant, so if you get caught, by anyone, don’t ■■■■■ about it.
BillyHunt:
To me it’s just a sign of the times, never happened years ago because we didn’t have the equipment then. There have always been do gooders around & always will be, the fact that this one uses a bike is irrelevant. I was reading a couple of weeks ago about a pedestrian that’s had over 30 drivers prosecuted for using phones while driving, just snaps them & sends them to the police.
As for using phones, or doing anything else while driving, you tend to get two groups. Group 1 sees no problem in it as they’ve done it for years with no problem.
Group 2 used to do it until someone they know was affected, by either doing it or by someone else doing it, and suffering as a consequence.
My take is simple, you know it’s illegal, wether you agree with it or not is irrelevant, so if you get caught, by anyone, don’t ■■■■■ about it.
I use my phone hands free - bluetooth - it wasn’t expensive and keeps me legal, so I’m not defending them for doing it, believe me it bugs the crap out of me when I see these arrogant gits in their £70k + cars with a phone to their ear, but I’m not the Police, I’m a HGV driver, I drive a truck and leave the policing to the Police
I must admit I agree with the above, yes its illegal and I honestly don’t know in this day and age when you can buy a Bluetooth headset for a fiver why you would risk it.
my disagreement is the its not safe etc, and how people are being caught by joe public (its like me wandering round taking videos of people throwing rubbish on the ground and getting them done for littering), this is what I think is wrong no matter what the law is.
I have been caught speeding before and hold my hands up accept it and learned from it but it was by a police officer not some guardian angel clad in lycra shorts with a camera.
Night-and-day:
The cyclist is a muppet and I hope one day he comes across the wrong person and gets the beating he deserves. Why are we encouraged to be a nation of snitches. Just because he is on the phone doesn’t make him a danger, he is obviously capable of doing more than one thing at once
Good post man . Most of those cyclists are left wing ,guardian reading good doing , ■■■■■ . IMO
So to recap, it’s ok for this driver to cabby about with a laptop open & running while on a mobile with headphones in but a cyclist with headphones in is a foolish suicide jockey. Mmm, not sure about this one.
