CAPE Town motorists caught talking on their cellphones without hands-free kits will have their phones confiscated from the start of next month – even if it is a first-time offence.
And they will have to wait 24 hours before they can reclaim their precious devices.
This road safety measure is in the City of Cape Town’s new traffic by-law, passed last year and now ready to be implemented.
Yeehah!
With headsets as cheap as chips, and many new cars fitted with Bluetooth, there's no excuse.
Personally, I'd like to bring back the birch for people who are txting whilst driving - and I see it a lot. What is so goddam important that you can put your life 9and mine) at risk by updating your facebook page or whatever at 40mph?
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Yawn. It's illegal to use mobiles on the move in most countries. Do the local plod do anything? No. So it's meaningless unless enforced. I was in a taxi just yesterday here in Austria with the driver on his phone. Changing gear meant no holding of steering wheel. Our neighbour comes home most days talking on her (non-hands free) phone.
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>> Personally, I'd like to bring back the birch for people who are txting whilst driving
>> - and I see it a lot. What is so goddam important that you can
>> put your life 9and mine) at risk by updating your facebook page or whatever at
>> 40mph?
>>
A lunchtime errand today took me from Holborn to St James St and back on the Brompton.
Daytime traffic seems far worse than rush hour and I did a fair bit of overtaking queues. The number of drivers creeping along while phoning, texting or messing with i-pads is frightening.
A few coppers or PCSOs on bikes with head cams for evidence gathering would pay their wages several times over.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 21 Jun 12 at 22:09
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How about an instant, non-negotiable lifetime driving ban for anyone caught and convicted of using a hand held device without hands free while driving? There is simply no need to do this. Pull over to the side of the road and reply to text messages.
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It can't be that dangerous if half the people on the road are doing it. The last one I noticed, on Tuesday I think, was driving an 8 wheel tipper.
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>> It can't be that dangerous if half the people on the road are doing it.
Quite, its not is it. There are no numbers to back it up. Mobile phone use in cars exploded hugely, and yet the death rate on the roads continued to fall.
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Ban all mobile phone inclusive tariffs.
Pay As You Go only.
Then maybe some of the guff people feel the urge to spluff with their mates while driving suddenly won't seem so valuable.
The number of people who will stop mid-conversation to reply to a text is amazing.
It. Really. Isn't. That. Important.
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>Ban all mobile phone inclusive tariffs.
Yeah, let's stuff all the sensible, law-abiding majority by doing something that will achieve f-all.
Making it illegal for Halfords to sell alloy wheels without a hands-free kit would be just as effective (and stupid).
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Obviously not a serious suggestion but more an observation that a huge bulk of phone calls are of negligible value.
Phone calls while driving are likely to have a negative value.
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Playing devil's advocate again, Zero! :-)
It is more dangerous to drive while under the influence of a mobile phone than it is to drive under the influence of alcohol. Here's a sample study:
tinyurl.com/5u4rcbl
"Driving performance under the influence of alcohol was significantly worse than normal driving, yet better than driving while using a phone. Drivers also reported that it was easier to drive drunk than to drive while using a phone. It is concluded that driving behaviour is impaired more during a phone conversation than by having a blood alcohol level at the UK legal limit (80mg / 100ml). "
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So why did the accident rate not soar when everyone was using mobile phones? The actual real world numbers simply don't back up the "studies"
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What are you trying to say, Zero? If you think that texting on a mobile phone is OK and should be legal then at least have the courage to say it.
Distractions of all kinds contribute to causing accidents, whether that's a mobile phone call, talking to a passenger, kids squabbling in the back, eating a sandwich, reading the paper while driving....whatever.
Cars have gotten safer, and the human damage caused by accidents has lessened as a result, which has been probably the greatest contributor to the fall in casualty figures over the years.
Accidents, like crime, have been on a downward trend for years. The contention is that if we can minimise all these distractions (by criminalising them if need be) then we'll be able to get the accident rate down still further.
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>> What are you trying to say, Zero? If you think that texting on a mobile
>> phone is OK and should be legal then at least have the courage to say
>> it.
I didn't say that at all did I. The specific law is in effect banning the use of mobile phones held in the hand. If you wish you can text while the phone is in its hand held cradle. Then you can be hit with the general catch all of not being in control. A law that was perfectly effective, as has been proved by the fact that accidents did not drop significantly when the ban came in. Not by a jot,
>> Distractions of all kinds contribute to causing accidents, whether that's a mobile phone call, talking
>> to a passenger, kids squabbling in the back, eating a sandwich, reading the paper while
>> driving....whatever.
So why don't we ban kids?
>> Accidents, like crime, have been on a downward trend for years. The contention is that
>> if we can minimise all these distractions (by criminalising them if need be) then we'll
>> be able to get the accident rate down still further.
And there is the problem. The driver is being criminalised, for all sorts of things, while crime is NOT being criminalised. Crime is down because its not being reported or recorded.
The mobile phone law is probably almost 100% ineffective, one we all see being broken every day with impunity. Why? because there insufficient resources to enforce it. Face it, all the real evidence says it was not required and post ban has achieved nothing. I see nothing wrong with accepting a mobile phone call while driving on a hand held phone. Did it for years. And yes I still do from time to time.
Now tell me for example, do you really thing someone should be criminalised for answering a phone while stuck in a jam?
>>
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>>Now tell me for example, do you really thing someone should be criminalised for answering a phone while stuck in a jam?
Should someone be criminalised for sitting in a traffic jam while drunk?
The drink-driving laws are almost 100% ineffective - what has changed since the 1970s is society's perception of drink-driving - without legislation do you think this would have changed much?
You can't stop alcoholics drink-driving any more than you can stop morons texting - you can show society that it is unacceptable behaviour, however.
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>> You can't stop alcoholics drink-driving any more than you can stop morons texting - you
>> can show society that it is unacceptable behaviour, however.
Funny how we have zoomed in on texting. Of course texting while driving is stupid, very stupid, one doesn't need to make it socially unacceptable, common sense says that texting while driving is dangerous, if you try it it FEELS unsafe. The problem is there is no law banning lack of common sense.
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>>The problem is there is no law banning lack of common sense.
+1
Problem with common sense is it isn't very common....
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>> What are you trying to say, Zero? If you think that texting on a mobile
>> phone is OK and should be legal then at least have the courage to say
>> it.
>>
There is a clear distinction between texting and voice calls. Texting means the phone user is looking at the phone, not the road. Voice calls might involve a lack of concentration, but at least you can watch what's going on and cut the call or drop the phone if urgent action is required.
Deaths HAVE been caused by texting, I can recall several being reported, but I don't recall any being attributed to telephone calls.
For the record I have no hands-free kit, and don't make or take calls while driving except on the very odd occasion when it's safe to do so.
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>
>> Deaths HAVE been caused by texting, I can recall several being reported,
Indeed they have, and were dealt with severely with the legislation and charging that was already in place.
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>>So why did the accident rate not soar when everyone was using mobile phones? The actual real world numbers simply don't back up the "studies" >>
Stuff the studies, the idiot with a phone clamped to his ear put his van onto the pavement rather than rear end me as I waited to turn right. I'm not complaining but the people on the pavement did!
Last edited by: Old Navy on Fri 22 Jun 12 at 08:13
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So never been nearly stuffed up the rear by a van where they didn't have a mobile phone? Happened to me plenty of times. And you too if you think about it.
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I'm very sceptical about that comparison; it's apples and pears. Alcohol impairs judgement, makes the user believe they are driving better when they are driving worse, and slows reactions.
Phone use is a distraction. It may be more or less dangerous, but its effect on given user at a given time and place can't be compared with alcohol, at least not easily. When the workload is higher, you can take your attention away from a mobile phone; you can't get un-drunk.
I'm not advocating or condoning using a phone while driving, but it's clearly far more common than drunk driving, which if it were on the scale of mobile phone use we might intuitivley expect to cause far more deaths.
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>>I'm not advocating or condoning using a phone while driving, but it's clearly far more common than drunk driving, which if it were on the scale of mobile phone use we might intuitivley expect to cause far more deaths.
If you are driving drunk, you are drunk for the entire duration of the journey.
It is unlikely someone is phoning/texting for 100% of their driving time.
Plenty of evidence suggests that someone using a phone is more likely to crash while doing so than someone drunk - the offset is that the 'danger period' maybe be only 10% of the time behind the wheel, for example.
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>> Drivers also reported that it was easier to drive
>> drunk than to drive while using a phone.
That's my experience as well. Mind you, the two things were in different eras. The former was in the 1970s and the latter in the 2010s. I've never tried doing the two things together.
Last edited by: L'escargot on Fri 22 Jun 12 at 08:24
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>> >> Drivers also reported that it was easier to drive
>> >> drunk than to drive while using a phone.
>>
Not surprising, alcohol boosts confidence.
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>> creeping along while phoning, texting or messing with i-pads is frightening.
I need both hands to text and I can't work those other machines to save my life. But answering the phone, or even making a call, while 'creeping along' in stop-start crawling traffic is perfectly all right.
Only in rapid, potentially complex traffic situations is phoning dangerous, and a lot of people seem very good at it even then.
I can see why as a cyclist you worry a bit, Bromptonaut, but there's no need to exaggerate (as I bawl with much profanity when drivers in front slow to 10mph below the limit for speed cameras).
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>> And they will have to wait 24 hours before they can reclaim their precious devices.
Being without my mobile phone for 24 hours wouldn't be a hardship for me.
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For the record, I do make and receive calls while driving. I usually use voice dial if I need to make a call, and hands-free, these days either integrated bluetooth or earphones depending which car I'm using.
I have been doing this since about 1987. I have been involved in 3 accidents in that time, and I wasn't on the phone during any of them. I suggest that proves nothing except that it's possible to do potentially dangerous things carefully if you are not actually impaired.
My instinct is that texting (or probably more frequently now facebooking, tweeting and IMing of which there must be an absolute explosion) is more dangerous, but it will be interesting to see if that creates a significant increase in accidents over the next year or two as smart phones become the default.
The fact remains that phone use is very different from excess alcohol, which actually impairs the driver, and has a dual effect of making you drive worse while at the same time making you think you are driving better. I'm surprised drink-drive education doesn't focus more on that point which few people seem to be aware of - I have heard several people over the years say without irony that they think they drive better after a couple of pints.
I resent extremely being rated equivalent to a drunk driver - I don't think I could have managed 3 (2 no fault) accidents in 25 years if I had been drunk 10% of the time.
The one that was my fault BTW was caused by not leaving an Audi 100 in gear when I parked it. When the discs cooled the handbrake failed to hold and it trundled gently into a wall without me in it. I was in the pub as it happens ;-)
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 22 Jun 12 at 12:22
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Mobile phone using drivers face confiscation - Mike H
