A horribly expensive mistake :(

newbie007_2

Unlucky OP given the situation you described. As usual many morons preaching the usual rubbish 'could kill someone' . OP wasn't on the motorway or crossing multiple lanes and talking on the phone at the same time, so some people as usual needs to get a life and stop being pricks.

I have a handsfree bluetooth which clips onto the sun visor I got from play.com a few years ago for £18, op you should consider buying one as they are well worth it.

daveyjp

Paradigm wrote: »

Yes it could, it didn't need a specific law. The same law (DCA) used to prosecute drivers eating while driving would have sufficed.... remember the woman prosecuted for eating an apple?

For a DCA prosectution the police have to prove in doing an activity such as eating an apple the driving was affected. The apple lady was also negotiating a left hand bend and was deemed not to be in full control as she only had one hand on the wheel - hence the prosecution.

The mobile law removed the need to show the driving was affected and made the law strict liability - just like drink driving, or should this be dealt with under DCA too?

Rolandtheroadie

Did the op search for, find, pick up, (I assume look to see who was calling)pull over, answer a mobile phone? Was the engine on or off? keys in ignition?
We can all debate the rights and wrongs, the laws of our fair land were decided by people we voted for (or didnt as the case may be) and are in place.
No matter our own personal opinion on said laws, the people we put in place to enforce them (police)decided a crime had been committed. It is now up to the OP to take the punishment because he's guilty or have his day in court and prove his innocence of the accusations.

tomstickland

keystone wrote: »

Not when they have pulled over and stopped by the side of the road to take the call as the OP says they were. Don't be so melodramatic.

Cheers

You've misunderstood what I meant.

Paradigm

daveyjp wrote: »

For a DCA prosectution the police have to prove in doing an activity such as eating an apple the driving was affected. The apple lady was also negotiating a left hand bend and was deemed not to be in full control as she only had one hand on the wheel - hence the prosecution.

Indeed & if you are holding a phone to your ear how many hands are on the wheel?

daveyjp wrote: »

The mobile law removed the need to show the driving was affected and made the law strict liability - just like drink driving, or should this be dealt with under DCA too?

Again you're right (with the law bit) but does picking up a mobile to see who's calling & then stop the car to take the call really equate to someone driving after sinking 10 pints? I don't think so!

Actually driving while using a mobile is a big no-no but IMO to prosecute the OP given the circumstances described is an abuse of a badly thought out, knee jerk law that does no-one any favours.

Lum

daveyjp wrote: »

"Could easily be handled by pre-existing laws."
It couldn't because before this law there was no strict liability law for using a mobile.

"Driving without due care and attention" is the offence you could use to prosecute for most of the mobile phone idiocy we see on a daily basis. The "dangerous", "careless" and "reckless" variants of that offence would catch all of the rest, with the exception of those people who can use the phone perfectly safely, and those who pulled over but just wanted to keep the heater on. Those latter people are not careless, reckless or dangerous and thus would not be prosecuted.

optimus_primera wrote: »

On a different ,but sort of related point, why don't lorry drivers get pulled for using cb radios?
(Not having a go at lorry drivers,just wondered)

Because the law has a very strict definition of a mobile phone and thus does not apply to lorry driver's CB radios, though technically it does apply to the new police TETRA radios as those can operate on the GSM networks as well as other frequencies.

And now my tupenneth worth.

Firstly there are a lot of preachers in this thread today, criticising the OP for picking up the phone on autopilot (perhaps because they were concentrating on driving) and then upon realising their mistake immediately pulling over to eliminate the possibility of causing any danger. This is hardly crime of the century now, is it?

I have to agree with the people who have stated just how dumb this law is. All the research out there shows that it is the act of having a telephone conversation that causes the distraction, and whether you are holding the phone or using handsfree makes virtually no difference, however they made the act of holding the phone the offence. Why? Much easier and cheaper to prove, otherwise you'd have to get the court to request phone call and location records from the provider for every case, rather than just show a picture of someone driving with something held against their ear and get an easy 60 quid.

The worst part is, as CB users (including the police themselves) have shown for many years, it is perfectly possible to have a conversation while driving without the distraction. This is mainly due to the way that CB conversations are structured. Everything is kept short and to the point with an agreed standard of shorthand, and most importantly nobody expects an immediate reply. If the driver's attention is needed elsewhere they can delay a reply without anyone nagging about ignoring them. Contrast with the typical mobile phone idiot gabbing constantly, often about nothing in particular and thus using a lot of their available brain-time on processing the conversation.

It's perfectly possible to have the former kind of conversation using a mobile phone instead of a CB, and it's actually not that hard to train the people you talk to to do likewise. Providing your driving is good enough that you actually plan things in advance you can tell the caller "hang on a minute while I overtake this lorry" or if something sudden happens, just switch to ignoring them, deal with the situation then, "sorry, can you repeat that, someone just pulled out in front of me". They soon learn that the quicker and more concise their point, the less likely they are to be interrupted.

Of course the most important part of all of this is to quickly determine how important the call is and if someone is just calling to natter, offer to call them back when you reach the next services or layby.

Just remember to switch your engine off or it'll still be 60 quid.

keystone

tomstickland wrote: »

You've misunderstood what I meant.

In which case I apologise but in the context of this thread the OP was doing nothing dangerous.

Cheers

tomstickland

I was replying to someone who claimed that "trivialising mobile phone use" was causing carnage on the roads.

Inactive

My mobile phone never rings whilst I'm driving, It has a red button on the front of it, I just press it when I get in my car.

Not too difficult.

venus1978

moonrakerz wrote: »

Can I join in and insult the motorcyclist ?

Don't worry we aren't all idiots