Using phone driving to increase to 6 points & £200 fine

[ferrariF50lover]

henrycrun said:

KSI's are falling due to vehicle secondary safety and advances in medical treatment.

Just turn it off, why is your personal lifesiht worth destroying another persons life ?

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/490393/Mobile-pho...

It's not, necessarily, but you have to look at the bigger picture.

The benefit of the motor car in general outweighs the 1700 or so people who are killed every year by their use. The question is whether the benefit of mobile phone use behind the wheel outweighs the, say, 800 deaths/year which that causes.

[SS2.]

ferrariF50lover said:

The question is whether the benefit of mobile phone use behind the wheel outweighs the, say, 800 deaths/year which that causes.

Another question could be where does the figure of '800 deaths per year' come from.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

ferrariF50lover said:

It's not, necessarily, but you have to look at the bigger picture.

The benefit of the motor car in general outweighs the 1700 or so people who are killed every year by their use. The question is whether the benefit of mobile phone use behind the wheel outweighs the, say, 800 deaths/year which that causes.

But no one is stopping mobile phone use. You can still use it, with a hands free option. Unless there's some massive benefit of a hand held phone over hands free that's worth killing people for. If so, I've missed it.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Ahh, well I can see that lives have to be sacrificed in order to achieve that.

Can't Siri and Cortana do it all now, if you ask them nicely?

[ferrariF50lover]

SS2. said:

Another question could be where does the figure of '800 deaths per year' come from.

Yes it could, but then we'd be taking away from a discussion on a serious topic for the sake of some silly, petty Internet pedant point scoring, and that would be rather a shame.

You know where I've plucked 800 from - my arse. 1735 road deaths in the UK in 2015. I guessed at a number which seemed sensible as a proportion of those which could be attributed to mobile phone use.

Might we ponder on the substantive subject at hand?

[ferrariF50lover]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

But no one is stopping mobile phone use. You can still use it, with a hands free option. Unless there's some massive benefit of a hand held phone over hands free that's worth killing people for. If so, I've missed it.

So take that thought and combine it with my earlier wonderment. Mobile phone use of the kind and in the manner which is prohibited, is that use worth the, say, 800 lives?

[johnfm]

Wacky Racer said:

Good.

9pts and £500 would be even better.

Talking on the phone is bad enough, but texting is idiotic, and women are more often than not the culprits from what I have seen.

Nobody wants a nanny state, but this is just common sense.

Hands free brackets can be bought for peanuts.

it seems that you do.

What next?

9pts and £500 for changing statiosn on the radio? Eatign a choclate bar while driving?

How about they stop and fine people who are driving badly in line with the current rules instead of yet more regulation.

[SS2.]

ferrariF50lover said:

You know where I've plucked 800 from - my arse. 1735 road deaths in the UK in 2015. I guessed at a number which seemed sensible as a proportion of those which could be attributed to mobile phone use.

Interesting use of the word 'sensible', especially since the stats to which you refer have been fairly widely discussed on PH over the past 24 hours.

ferrariF50lover said:

Might we ponder on the substantive subject at hand?

Indeed we might, but don't you think any discussion is best served with the pertinent facts being correct, rather than being plucked at random from somewhere the sun don't shine ?

[johnfm]

kowalski655 said:

Perhaps, in addition, confiscate the phone at the roadside. A lot will lose a PAYG POS, but a lot will lose an expensive iPhone on contract that they will have to keep paying for.
Tell the phone company too so it can't be replaced on insurance as "stolen"

Surely their first born child should also be put to death.

Those without children should have a limb amputated until this crazy, unsafe practice that is maiming and killing thousands is stamped out.

[johnfm]

ferrariF50lover said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

But no one is stopping mobile phone use. You can still use it, with a hands free option. Unless there's some massive benefit of a hand held phone over hands free that's worth killing people for. If so, I've missed it.

So take that thought and combine it with my earlier wonderment. Mobile phone use of the kind and in the manner which is prohibited, is that use worth the, say, 800 lives?

Unlikely to be anywhere near that figure.

Look at the date before mobile phone ownership escalated. If mobile phone use while driving was as dangerous as claimed there'd be a visible signal in the data - though it seems that 'collision' data is hard to come by and KSI data is the standard used.

In any event, if the number of RTA's had gone up in concert with mobile phone use we'd have heard about it from insurance companies.

[SS2.]

johnfm said:

ferrariF50lover said:

Mobile phone use of the kind and in the manner which is prohibited, is that use worth the, say, 800 lives?

Unlikely to be anywhere near that figure.

It isn't. But why let the facts get in the way of a good 'discussion' ?

[caelite]

SickAsAParrot said:

I love living in a society where I can just pick and choose which laws I decide to obey.

Yup. Thats what happens when you live in a society over-saturated with 'minor offenses'

[caelite]

SS2. said:

johnfm said:

ferrariF50lover said:

Mobile phone use of the kind and in the manner which is prohibited, is that use worth the, say, 800 lives?

Unlikely to be anywhere near that figure.

It isn't. But why let the facts get in the way of a good 'discussion' ?

If you want some 'facts' 67 road traffic fatalities have been attributed to mobile phone usage, in the last 3 years (circa 2015). I am trying to find their source but these numbers where compiled by the Mirror (I know :/ ) from a parliament press release.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mobile-phone-...

Whilst the source isn't properly cited these figures supposedly include where hands free implements where used and possibly include other handheld electronic distractions (GPS, MP3 players, etc).

To put those numbers into perspective that's ~23 road deaths yearly directly attributed to mobile phone use, out of the 500k total yearly deaths in the UK and 1,732 road deaths as of '15 (down from 3,200 from '05, where mobile use was far less prevalent).

EDIT: I should mention that the numbers I am citing are also backed up by the Express article posted by another poster earlier which cited 17 deaths in 2012 attributed to mobile usage, although they are similarly vague with there sources.


EDITEDIT: Also I should point out for those who havn't bothered to read between the lines, that express article headline is total bullst. The DoT numbers cited list 'Out of the 88 deaths atributed to in car distractions, 17 of which the distraction was a mobile phone' making mobile phones the most likely culprit in IN CAR DISTRACTION based accidents, completely ignoring much larger killers such as driver errors, innapropriate speed for road cond., external distractions, mechanical failure etc. This is exactly why I have a problem with these types of draconian punishments as there are being fueled by people with some form of agenda who blow what is a relatively minor issue way out of proportion and way to many people nowadays buy right into there st.

Edited by caelite on Monday 19th September 19:15

[watchnut]

At least the change in the law is a step forward....

I had a chat to a "traffic /speed enforcement" bloke today who was parked up taking photo's of all the cretins who speed along my road......nice chap ( I didn't go out of my way to chat to him, he was parked by a post box)
30 MPH road, school kids waiting to be picked up. The school bus stops, hides the van from a car who went around it at 56 mph!...sweet

I asked him what the range of the camera was....2500m yep before you see him he has you bagged up and filed.....and more....if he can see you on the phone, or no seat belt that is also added to the FPN

He didn't care that cars were flashing a warning to other vehicles that he was there....he believed that most were even too stupid to take note of the warning!

I liked the suggestion earlier of a month ban first offence, and maybe the phone confiscated for a month too?

[SS2.]

watchnut said:

At least the change in the law is a step forward.

No law changes are proposed, just an increase to the fixed penalty.

[wack]

Mobile phone use in cars has improved my daily drive considerably

In the past I'd sit in a queue chugging away until I got to the front, now I sail past laughing at all the mugs sitting waiting because I know at the front where it's stopped there'll be 1/2 a dozen cars with a 50m gap while they tweet about how long it's taken them to get to the front.

Result

[cptsideways]

Re the stats - I believe Dorset is soon to publish some shocking new KSI stats, not up by slight percentages either

This was last year & its gone up by an even bigger margin this year

http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/13776099._WAKE_UP...

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/13322739.Num...

Edited by cptsideways on Monday 19th September 22:23

[caelite]

cptsideways said:

Re the stats - I believe Dorset is soon to publish some shocking new KSI stats, not up by slight percentages either

This was last year & its gone up by an even bigger margin this year

http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/13776099._WAKE_UP...

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/13322739.Num...

Edited by cptsideways on Monday 19th September 22:23

Niether article cites mobile phone use as a direct cause. Only the latter article even mentions that mobile phone use was a part of a current police crackdown. Both articles cite cutbacks in funding as there suspected cause.

What reinforces the fact mobile phone use is relatively minor is when you compare the numbers that in Dorset alone there was 300something RTA fatalities last year yet according to DfT numbers in the UK as a whole only 20something fatal accidents where attributed to phone use. So we are talking about a pretty small percentage of accidents.

[Pachydermus]

caelite said:

So we are talking about a pretty small percentage of accidents.

Maybe it's just luck. I've had to drive a bit more than normal in the past week and have had the pleasure of watching 3 people wander into my lane before veering back. Two of those were clearly people fiddling with a phone. The third was a Fedex driver trying to sort through a pile of papers he was holding.
Fortunately these incidents were 'only' at 30mph but I'd rather not have a head-on crash at any speed. A few seconds either way and they would have been another statistic.
I saw the aftermath of a head-on here a bit over a year ago. How does anyone manage that unless they're messing around with something they shouldn't be?

[cptsideways]

caelite said:

cptsideways said:

Re the stats - I believe Dorset is soon to publish some shocking new KSI stats, not up by slight percentages either

This was last year & its gone up by an even bigger margin this year

http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/13776099._WAKE_UP...

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/13322739.Num...

Edited by cptsideways on Monday 19th September 22:23

Niether article cites mobile phone use as a direct cause. Only the latter article even mentions that mobile phone use was a part of a current police crackdown. Both articles cite cutbacks in funding as there suspected cause.

What reinforces the fact mobile phone use is relatively minor is when you compare the numbers that in Dorset alone there was 300something RTA fatalities last year yet according to DfT numbers in the UK as a whole only 20something fatal accidents where attributed to phone use. So we are talking about a pretty small percentage of accidents.

As mentioned above the stats don't take into account phone use due to the form not having the tick box! I don't know the science behind the data gathering but anyone in the know appears to suggest its failing at showing the root cause.

It's the figures like rise of failed to look, inattention, falling off the road by yourself that is the giveaway.