Mobile phone awareness course

Aylesbury_Duck

unholyangel wrote: »

What I find most remarkable is that cars have had so many gadgets and features added to them but still, no breathalyser.

I don't think it would work anyway. If you're daft enough to drink and drive at all you're unlikely to be deterred by a warning from an in-car breathalyser. It's a conscious and willing decision to drink so the only effective self-policing is to arrange alternative transport. Having an in-car breathalyser would simply serve as a target for many, and even at just under the legal limit they're more of a risk than if they drank no alcohol at all.

I just don't get it. If you "need" to drink alcohol even when you know you're driving, you're already alcohol-dependent, which carries its own risk as to where it will end up. I've got friends and colleagues who insist that they "need" alcohol to relax at the end of the day or to have a good time. They don't drive on it but that dependency is concerning.

Car_54

Paradigm wrote: »

That's not strictly true.....


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"Using" a phone isn't the offence by itself, holding it while "using" & driving is! Hence hands free Bluetooth & phone cradles.

Read the thread again. I was answering a post which said “... if they had a phone in their hands... “

Paradigm

Car_54 wrote: »

Read the thread again. I was answering a post which said “... if they had a phone in their hands... “

There's no shame in admitting you were wrong, which you were! (post #32)

unholyangel

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

I don't think it would work anyway. If you're daft enough to drink and drive at all you're unlikely to be deterred by a warning from an in-car breathalyser. It's a conscious and willing decision to drink so the only effective self-policing is to arrange alternative transport. Having an in-car breathalyser would simply serve as a target for many, and even at just under the legal limit they're more of a risk than if they drank no alcohol at all.

I just don't get it. If you "need" to drink alcohol even when you know you're driving, you're already alcohol-dependent, which carries its own risk as to where it will end up. I've got friends and colleagues who insist that they "need" alcohol to relax at the end of the day or to have a good time. They don't drive on it but that dependency is concerning.

I was thinking more the car wouldn't start If people could self police, we wouldn't have so many offending now.

Or so many with drinking problems

George_Michael

unholyangel wrote: »

I was thinking more the car wouldn't start

If cars had such a device fitted, it wouldn't take long for someone to start selling devices to bypass these sensors.
In reality, what would it really take to fool such a device? A balloon full of air placed over a breathalyzer and squeezed for 10 of 15 seconds may well do it.

shaun_from_Africa

unforeseen wrote: »

Shaun from Africa a is correct. There is 'no valid defense', however there may be a valid defence

Both spellings are correct and can be used. It's just that one is used mainly in American English and the other is generally used elsewhere.
Defence is the preferred spelling and most widely used in the UK but that doesn't mean that defense is incorrect.

Anyway, I'm typing on a computer that defaults to US English, and as far as this computer is concerned, "defense" is correct.

If you are going to try to be pedantic, it's best to make sure that your posts are grammatically correct as well!

unforeseen wrote: »

Shaun from Africa a is correct.

Is "Africa a" a different place to "Africa b"?

shaun_from_Africa

AndyMc..... wrote: »

You might want to rethink that unless of course you can no longer use duress and I'll stand corrected.

Fair enough. I didn't know about that one.

onomatopoeia99

rca779 wrote: »

Anyone caught on their phone while driving should have their phone destroyed right there and then on the spot, PLUS the 6 points and fine.

That would scare most people off using their precious phones.

It would be unfortunate if the driver had borrowed your phone when stopped due to making a call in that situation.

Herzlos

Aylesbury_Duck wrote: »

I don't think it would work anyway. If you're daft enough to drink and drive at all you're unlikely to be deterred by a warning from an in-car breathalyser.

As far as I understand it, the majority of drink-driving cases are people who've still been over the limit the next day and not realised, rather than folk who get into a car right after a heavy session.

Jackmydad

Herzlos wrote: »

As far as I understand it, the majority of drink-driving cases are people who've still been over the limit the next day and not realised, rather than folk who get into a car right after a heavy session.

I don't know what the statistics are, but surely, if you know you're going to have a heavy session then you don't drive early the next day? Or don't have the heavy session?
Attitudes have changed in the 50 years since I've been a road user, first on motorbikes and then in cars.
While the attitude that "They can't tell me what to do" etc. etc. still persists with some people, my thoughts are that if you're responsible enough to drive a car, then you're responsible enough to make sure you're under the limit when driving. Whenever that driving is done.

I like a drink myself. My OH and myself get a taxi to the pub. We don't have "heavy sessions these days either.

It's telling (in my mind at least) that the first serious "accident" I saw was the results of drink driving.
That's well over 55 years ago.
The driver in that case could barely stand up.