Handheld Device Query

[CMYKguru]

Not me before anyone gets a big stick to beat the CMYK out of me.

My sisters boss got 3 points for 'moving her phone while stationary at a set of red lights'. Now I'm skeptical but just say she is telling the truth.

The story goes that she was stopped at a red light and moved her phone from the centre console to a handsfree docking station. On the other side of the dash. She wasn't talking on the phone and in the three seconds it took a marked car drove up and one and pulled her over further down the road.

So the officer gave 3 points for 'using a phone while driving and driving without due car and attention'. The officer said she could appeal but would lose because he doesn;t make mistakes (haha good one).

Anyway i've said if she genuinely wasn't using her phone then it's harsh. The fact she was a middle aged lady who wouldn't put forward her side probably didn't help either.

My point is that moving a phone into a dock station is no different from taking a cig and lighting it or reaching for a sweet/drink from the centre console.

[marshalla]

CMYKguru said:

My point being that moving a phone into a dock station is no different from taking a cig and lighting it or reaching for a sweet/drink etc.

Except that one of them may be covered by legislation which prohibits "using" a hand-held device whilst driving, while the others aren't.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/2695/regul...

(ETA - not saying it's right or fair, btw. It comes down to how that word "using" is interpreted.)

Edited by marshalla on Tuesday 9th December 15:08

[Cliftonite]

Moving a phone from the central console to the docking station is not "using" it, though is it?

[mehball]

Cliftonite said:

Moving a phone from the central console to the docking station is not "using" it, though is it?

Yes. If you have your phone in your hands you are using it even if it's just moving it. You don't need to be making a call or texting to be using your phone.

[Mr Will]

CMYKguru said:

The story goes that she was stopped at a red light and moved her phone from the centre console to a handsfree docking station. On the other side of the dash. She wasn't talking on the phone and in the three seconds it took a marked car drove up and one and pulled her over further down the road.

Devils Advocate, but why was the phone in the centre console to begin with? Wouldn't you just put it in the docking station when you first got in the car? Not checking an email/message/whatever with it in her lap while stopped and then putting it back as the lights changed was she?

[Eclassy]

Very tricky one. If it is as described, then copper is a jobsworth.

I have bluetooth handsfree built in my car so have abdolutely no need to hold my phone when driving but since my phone serves as my satnav there have been times when I have picked up my phone, mounted it on the vent and operated it for navigation.

Its a bit crazy that I can get done for that but if I did exactly the same thing with a stand alone Garmin or TomTom, I'd be fine.

[SS2.]

It all hinges on what Parliament was intending with the word 'use' when drafting the legislation.

Did it really intend to make an offence of simply handling a mobile phone whilst stopped in a traffic queue, for instance ? Or was a more common sense approach the intention ?

It needs someone to take a case like this through the courts.

[Moonhawk]

SS2. said:

It all hinges on what Parliament was intending with the word 'use' when drafting the legislation.

Did it really intend to make an offence of simply handling a mobile phone whilst stopped in a traffic queue, for instance ? Or was a more common sense approach the intention ?

It needs someone to take a case like this through the courts.

I suspect a common sense approach was intended - but if the story is as described - the police office is a jobsworth and common sense rarely prevails with such people.

There can be reasons why you need to move your phone whilst in the vehicle. I bluetooth mine to the stereo so that I can listen to my playlist whilst on the move. Unfortunately if I leave the phone in my pocket - the Bluetooth reception isn't great and it keeps cutting out.

Simply taking the phone out of my pocket and placing it in the centre console to aid reception would (based on the OPs story) be committing an offence. I'm sure the law was never intended to be that strict.

Surely the word "use" implies actually using the device for a function for which it was designed (i.e. making a call, using sat nav functions, browsing the web etc). Simply relocating the device from one location to another does not constitute "using" it.

[Cooperman]

Se has the absolute right to go to court and explain that she was not 'using' the phone, merely moving it.
A test case is surely needed to define what the word 'using' actually means in this context.
Simplistically, the way a 'phone is used is by making a telephone call or 'using' any one of the other functions for which it is designed to be 'used'.
I can move my computer from a table into my car, but I'm not using my computer, I'm 'moving' it. But if I put my computer into a case before moving it I might be 'using' the case, not the computer, since the case was then being used for its intended purpose - moving stuff.
The stupidity of this might be well illustrated by having a packet of cigarettes in the centre glove box. You get in and put your phone in the glove-box where it can lock onto Bluetooth. Then you are driving and want to take out and light a cigarette, but the phone is on top of the packet. The offence seems to be committed if you move the phone whilst getting the fag packet out, rather than actually taking the fag packet, opening it, removing a fag, putting the fag in your mouth, finding your lighter and lighting it. Is this really the true intention of the law, or is it being mis-applied by over-zealous police officers or their superiors?

[CAPP0]

I have no idea of the source or the wording but I have it in my head that the legislation on phones somehow provides that if it is in your hand, you are "using" it? Also something to do with whether the ignition key is inserted or not? That may all be urban myth so don't flame me.

[agtlaw]

SS2. said:

It all hinges on what Parliament was intending with the word 'use' when drafting the legislation.

Did it really intend to make an offence of simply handling a mobile phone whilst stopped in a traffic queue, for instance ? Or was a more common sense approach the intention ?

It needs someone to take a case like this through the courts.

There's a Scottish authority - holding a mobile phone is not necessarily "using" it. Not sure if this is a first instance decision though.

The alternative is to charge 'not in proper control'. Same penalty, arguably fewer hoops for the prosecution to jump through. 41D(a) rather than 41D(b). http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/sectio...

[Cliftonite]

mehball said:

Cliftonite said:

Moving a phone from the central console to the docking station is not "using" it, though is it?

Yes. If you have your phone in your hands you are using it even if it's just moving it. You don't need to be making a call or texting to be using your phone.

I am genuinely asking you for a reference / authority to confirm this seemingly daft scenario. I know it may be true as I understand that stupid / sadistic (delete as applicable) police / magistrates seem to think you are "driving" your car if the engine is running, even when parked in a lay-by, in neutral with the handbrake set. Cretins!

[Cooperman]

It seems that to get my tube of extra strong mints at the bottom of the centre glove box I can move my gloves, my cigarettes (if I was daft enough to smoke), my pocket note book, my CD's, my sat nav unit if it's in there, any pencils or pens, a chocolate bar, a handkerchief or tissues, my wallet, a sheet of paper, a bag of toffees (I have a big centre glove box), but if I so much as move my mobile phone it can be 3 points & £100.
Amazing legal logic!

[Swanny87]

mehball said:

Yes. If you have your phone in your hands you are using it even if it's just moving it. You don't need to be making a call or texting to be using your phone.

What? Until the person actually dials a number and starts engaging in a conversation then a phone is not being used is it? It could have been a glasses holder or any other object she moved from the centre console to the right of the dashboard. Would you say moving an object from one place to another inside a car, stopped at traffic lights, is dangerous?

Copper sounds like a proper megalomaniac. If anything she was making it safer by putting it into a cradle so it didn't fly around the cabin.

[anonymous-user]

CAPP0 said:

I have no idea of the source or the wording but I have it in my head that the legislation on phones somehow provides that if it is in your hand, you are "using" it? Also something to do with whether the ignition key is inserted or not? That may all be urban myth so don't flame me.

What will happen when we get our new car where the 'thingy' only has to be within the confines of the vehicle

Things have moved on legislation rarely keeps up

[twistedsanity]

I recall a few years back somebody getting off of " using" a phone whilst driving as they were dictating a message on it not making a call, surely this is of a similar ilk ?

[twistedsanity]

I recall a few years back somebody getting off of " using" a phone whilst driving as they were dictating a message on it not making a call, surely this is of a similar ilk ?

[Aretnap]

twistedsanity said:

I recall a few years back somebody getting off of " using" a phone whilst driving as they were dictating a message on it not making a call, surely this is of a similar ilk ?

Jimmy Carr. However it was only a magistrates court decision so did not set a precedent - a different court on a different day would be free to convict someone in the same circumstances.

[Gareth79]

I was of the opinion that Jimmy Carr was lucky and most magistrates would take a view that operating any feature on a phone is "using" it, but that moving it around a car (docking, hanging to a passenger) is not, so long as it was done safely and maintaining control.

It's possible that an officer was chancing their arm, or that we don't have the whole story.

[pork911]

Gareth79 said:

or that we don't have the whole story.

of course, since 'i got done for using my phone because i was' tends not to elicit sympathy