Phone payment at toll or drive through
Phone payment at toll or drive through
Author
Discussion

ging84

Original Poster:

9,548 posts

176 months

Thursday 13th April 2017
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I've started to use my phone instead of my card for most small payments, yesterday i was buying food at a drive through and the thought occurred to me that using my phone to pay could be illegal, and it could be at a toll booth too.

Am i criminal ? should i be ashamed of myself for using a hand held mobile phone while driving ?
It was actually much easier to use my phone than get my wallet out my back pocket.

donkmeister

12,986 posts

130 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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Can't wait to see this one play out... yes

Good question!

exelero

2,083 posts

119 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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If you stop your engine while you pay you'll be fine

Cold

16,724 posts

120 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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Children will be dying in their thousands. frown

spookly

4,393 posts

125 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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There's probably loads of grey areas of the law on mobile phone use.

What about a wrist watch phone? Is that hand held if you are holding it up to your face or tapping buttons on it? It isn't really in your hand, but nearly is, and isn't attached to the car.

Andehh

7,606 posts

236 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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spookly said:
There's probably loads of grey areas of the law on mobile phone use.

What about a wrist watch phone? Is that hand held if you are holding it up to your face or tapping buttons on it? It isn't really in your hand, but nearly is, and isn't attached to the car.
Your not 'holding' the phone, it is attached to your wrist. Same way a phone is held in a cradle 'near you'.

Using a phone to pay at a Toll I imagine would fall on the wrong side of that grey area. You are using a phone whilst in charge of a vehicle. If the police wanted to be truly pedantic, I think they could...

herewego

8,814 posts

243 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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Take-away not a problem as not a public road. Road tolls could be different. Are there any road tolls payable by mobile?

akirk

5,778 posts

144 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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herewego said:
Take-away not a problem as not a public road. Road tolls could be different. Are there any road tolls payable by mobile?
are not all roads open to the public counted as public roads - hence ability to be prosecuted in supermarket car parks etc. pretty sure the RTA applies...
and you can be done for mobile phone use while in control of a car - that can include sitting in it with the keys in the ignition and the engine turned off - silly, but doable...

herewego

8,814 posts

243 months

Friday 14th April 2017
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akirk said:
herewego said:
Take-away not a problem as not a public road. Road tolls could be different. Are there any road tolls payable by mobile?
are not all roads open to the public counted as public roads - hence ability to be prosecuted in supermarket car parks etc. pretty sure the RTA applies...
and you can be done for mobile phone use while in control of a car - that can include sitting in it with the keys in the ignition and the engine turned off - silly, but doable...
Apparently, according to recent threads, most traffic legislation applies to publicly accessible areas as well as roads but mobile phone legislation applies only to roads.

ging84

Original Poster:

9,548 posts

176 months

Friday 14th April 2017
quotequote all
A drive through exists purely to allow vehicles to travel along it to certain destinations. Those destinations may be very close, and the speeds very low but in principle there is a fairly strong argument that it is a road.

If you don't believe the authorities would be happy to waste thousands perusing a pointless legal technicality just look at this thread.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...


ModernAndy

2,094 posts

165 months

Saturday 15th April 2017
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randlemarcus

13,646 posts

261 months

Saturday 15th April 2017
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Humber Bridge toll is payable by Android Pay and Apple Pay. Did it last night, and no kittens died visibly.

JimbobVFR

2,822 posts

174 months

Saturday 15th April 2017
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randlemarcus said:
Humber Bridge toll is payable by Android Pay and Apple Pay. Did it last night, and no kittens died visibly.
Is that a consequence of them supporting contactless payments or do companies specifically opt in to mobile payments?

codenamecueball

734 posts

119 months

Saturday 15th April 2017
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JimbobVFR said:
Is that a consequence of them supporting contactless payments or do companies specifically opt in to mobile payments?
You need your contactless system to work "online" I believe, instead of storing the details as pre-authorised and putting them in as a chunk at the end of the day.

Tomo1971

1,177 posts

187 months

Tuesday 18th April 2017
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To be safe of not getting prosecuted.

Pull up to payment toll (has to be manned)
Stop, apply handbrake.
Remove ignition keys
hand keys to attendant
Get phone from dash / pocket / briefcase (delete as applicable)
Use contactless payments
Put phone back
get keys from attendant
start car - >>>> Go.

Just in case you get a 17 yr old cop watching who thinks that its actually what the law was written for and tickets you.

MrBarry123

6,108 posts

151 months

Wednesday 19th April 2017
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You should be okay OP.

If I'm on the phone when I pull up to the booth, it's much easier just to ask the person on the phone to hold for a few seconds whilst I pay for my Big Mac and large fries before continuing my conversation with my phone pressed to my ear. And I've never been tugged by the po-po.