Record number of motorists prosecuted for driving while usingmobile phones
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From: Adrian on 19 Mar 2010 07:51 "Mr Benn" <nospam(a)invalid.invalid> gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying: > Conor, it has already been explained. Talking to a passenger in a car > is quite different to talking to someone on the end of a phone > connection. No, it isn't. You might treat it differently, but there really is no inherent difference. > A passenger in a car knows when to shut up when a driver had to > concentrate. Some do, some don't. > Someone on the end of a phone will carry on talking which can distract > the driver. You don't HAVE to listen to them, y'know. One thing I'd quite like to know - how does the car stereo know when to shut up?
From: Albert T Cone on 19 Mar 2010 10:12 Ret. wrote: > > Well, I suppose it depends upon just how you define the term 'auto > pilot' in relation to driving! Either way, safe driving demands full > conscious attention to the task. Anything less reduces safety. > Hmmm. When you were first learning to drive, I would imagine that you found the mechanics of driving taxing - I remember trying to drive a figure of 8 whilst changing gears and finding it astonishingly difficult. After some time and experience, these things become automatic and are done, for the most part, subconsciously. Likewise, when you drive nowadays, do you constantly think to yourself "Scan road ahead, left mirror, rear mirror, right mirror, check instruments, scan road ahead...."? I rather suspect that checking your mirrors is a largely automatic task too, and that only if something out of the ordinary is there during a check do you think about it consciously and decide how to act. I'm not suggesting that you don't think consciously at all about your driving, but that *some* of what you do has become automated by experience, and that exactly what is automated may vary from person to person on the basis of their mental capacities and experience.
From: Conor on 19 Mar 2010 11:05 On 19/03/2010 08:13, Ret. wrote: > In what way? If you are not consciously concentrating on your driving - > then you are on 'auto-pilot' in the general understanding of that term > when applied to driving. Really? If that is so, how come I've not had an accident in 1.8 million miles? -- Conor I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
From: Conor on 19 Mar 2010 11:08 On 19/03/2010 08:42, Ret. wrote: > This is America but: > Completely irrelevent... > http://www.car-accidents.com/cell_phone_car_accidents.html > > Several studies show cell phones are a leading cause of car crashes. It > is estimated that cell phone distracted drivers are four times more > likely to be in a car wreck. According to a Harvard University study, > cell phones cause over 200 deaths and half a million injuries each year. In the USA, road deaths are THREE TIMES higher per 100,000 people than they are in the UK (Source US Embassy Website) In the USA there were over 39000 deaths last year yet they reckon cell phones were POSSIBLY responsible for only 200 of those. AND FINALLY, Remember this is in a country where texting whilst driving is extremely commonplace, unlike the UK where people talk more whilst driving. -- Conor I'm not prejudiced. I hate everyone equally.
From: JNugent on 19 Mar 2010 11:57
Ian Jackson wrote: > ... using a mobile phone got such a bad reputation that it was > eventually banned as an activity in its own right. The degree of > opprobrium is now so great that the police have pushed the definition of > the 'use' of a phone to encompass using a phone when vehicle is > stationary at the roadside (engine running, brake on) or, as the Jeremy > Vine programme illustrated, handing (even momentarily touching) a phone > when moving. The police might have done so. It isn't at all clear that the law has. |