In car distractions

As the law has banned the use of mobile phone while driving unless hands free, does this mean the police are also banned from using there 2-way radios while drive as i spotted one today using one, in snowy conditions as well. He was the only one in the car as well? I was in stationary traffic on the way to work and delayed because of the smow. I called the work to say i was going to be late, as the engine was running why would this consitute an offence?

Also why is it illegal to eat and apple, drink from a carton using a straw etc, but not illegal to smoke, light a cigarette, change the radio station or cd, turn the volume up, shout at the kids in the back while looking at them, speaking with a passenger and looking at them(which is like speaking to someone on a mobile phone), wind the window up or down, open the sunroof. The point i'm getting at is there are more distractions in the car than using the mobile or eating an apple.

If the issue regarding the policeman usinghis 2-way is because he receives an extra days training then why does Joe public not get this extra training. Before anyone else mentions the policeman could be on his way to a buglary at my house, but he could also cause an accident on the way and never get there.

The law just seems to be screwed up!

Nigel

But we hear of people getting fined for eating an apple, is this not just the same distraction as smoking?

As you say the law is a bit screwed up!

Just something to make you smile Toby.

I have a Tom Tom Go sat nav system, a snooper radar detector, and a road angel gps camera detector, it was pointed out to me recently, by one of my collegues who doesnt like these devices, that all three units are mounted so as to be within the sweep of my windscreen wipers, making all of them illegal, well the mounting of them anyway !

Edited by Nigel

How about the story of a bloke in the good 'ol U S of A that was pulled for having a tv fastened to the bonnet of his pick-up.

On the subject of smoking while driving

Why dont the people get pulled over for flinging the fag end out the window?

I mean dont they have ashtrays in there cars!!

 

I agree it has all gone a bit mad at the moment, although I don't think people should use mobile phones while driving. I've been behind someone who all of a sudden slows down and started to drift around a bit, then I noticed they were on the phone! I only tried to use a handheld phone once while driving and found it impossible to concentrate on the road, some thing I have no problem doing while talking to a passenger, eating an apple, smoking a fag (when I used to smoke).

Skull your right, no ones interested in actually addressing the real causes of accidents anymore. I got my first speeding ticket yesterday, for doing 38mph in a 30 zone. It wasn't a built up area however, it was a temporary speed limit for road works on a dual carridgeway. I musn't have slowed down quickly enough. I wouldn't car the limit comes into force anout 1/2 a mile before the road works. �60 and three points

I think the safety nazis are waaayyyy out of control in this time and place. You can't do this, you must do that, what a load of BS. Especially when you compare the amount of emphasis given to bashing drivers and making our lives unbearable.

I don't really like it when people use their mobiles, it definitely distracts people a lot more than most other things, and I don't really know why. You can almost always tell from someone's driving when they're on a mobile, they slow down for no apparent reason and tend to drive without any clue what so ever.

However, picking on someone for taking a swig out of a bottle or having a fag is ludicrous.

Here is an interesting statistic: did you know that hospital acquired infections from the government-managed NHS directly kill nearly twice as many people as all the traffic accidents in the UK? And that they contribute to the deaths of 5-6 times as many people again?

If you look at actual accident statistics and not the Big Lie of 33%, then speed directly kills only about 7% of all the traffic accident victims and contributes to about another 5% (my numbers are hazy but I think I'm in the right ballpark)

All this means is that for every person killed on the roads, where excessive speed was in any way a contributory factor, the NHS directly kills more that 100 people through not taking care of the hospital superbug and contributes to the death of 300 more people. So, in other words, for every death that excessive speed contributes to, the NHS contributes to the death of 400 others.

Now: I don't advocate people dying in traffic accidents, and I agree that accidents should be reduced, but I wonder about all the publicity given to punishing us for speeding because it kills versus actual government work on eradicating the MSRA superbug. I'm also not having a go at any people working for the NHS, let's be clear about that.

But the bottom line is that millions of individual motorists are persecuted for causing 0.25% of the preventable deaths that an institution, under direct government control, is responsible for. And then I'm not even including any other thing that the NHS might be doing wrong systemically or through the fault of its employees.

It just seems to me that the emphasis is wee bit misguided.

Nigel wrote: Just something to make you smile Toby. I have a Tom Tom Go sat nav system, a snooper radar detector, and a road angel gps camera detector, it was pointed out to me recently, by one of my collegues who doesnt like these devices, that all three units are mounted so as to be within the sweep of my windscreen wipers, making all of them illegal, well the mounting of them anyway !

Your dashdoard must be on a parr with that of the Nebuchadnezzar(Matrix ship) Nigel.

So many buttons to press, so little time eh?  ...

<Snooper S5i - "beep beep beep beep">  - "Damn, false alarm, it's only a pelican crossing!"

Put mine on Ebay last month, was doing me blinking nut in.

skull wrote: plod are too busy checking numberplate sizes and bike exhausts to worry about anything that may kill a motorcyclist

That would be the traffic department.

Im afraid they lose their power of arrest once they get into their big comfortable motorway car. Its a known phenomenon.
Motorbike exhausts are a lot more interesting than chasing a burglar

Hilarious quote from DfT website

The tables published reveal that for 743 locations, casualties increased rather than decreased. However, this does not mean that cameras have not been effective at all these locations:

They then go on to offer all sorts of statistical method-related comment, while denying drivers' organisations the right to make any comment on their own statistical methods...

Vote the pond scum out -- you know it makes sense!