People driving with earphones on....

haaammit

haaammit

haaammit

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I seem to be seeing this more and more, people driving around with a pair of earphones stuffed in their lugoles. I could understand one as part of a mobile phone hands free setup, but a pair? Are these people listening to music via headphones? Surely that's rather dangerous as hearing is pretty much your second used sense when it comes to driving :eek:

How the hell are you meant to hear emergency vehicles, car horns or loud motor bike exhausts whilst having those things stuffed in your ears?
 
Doesn't seem like a terrible idea, what about if you're driving along with the car stereo turned up loud, same difference surely?

Besides, you should spot motorbikes and emergency vehicles in your mirrors.
 
ganesh said:
Doesn't seem like a terrible idea, what about if you're driving along with the car stereo turned up loud, same difference surely?

Besides, you should spot motorbikes and emergency vehicles in your mirrors.
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Headphones tend to block out external noise.

And what if you can't see them?
 
Jokester said:
Headphones tend to block out external noise.

And what if you can't see them?
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This is what annoys me the most. Even some drivers not using earphones are unable to spot emergency services!!

Shouldn't be allowed. If you want hands free, either get a headset, link it to your car or pull over.
 
Like Jokester says, headphones will reduce a lot of noise - more so than a loud stereo system.

I certainly agree that you should be scanning your mirrors all the time, but what at road junctions and traffic lights? I'll bet pennies to a pinch of **** that most people will go across traffic lights when they're green without even a glance left and right to check the other traffic has stopped.

Why remove a valuable sense that can help keep you and other road users safe? Most odd.
 
I did this in my focus. I fitted a stereo in my car before it capable of playing from my phone + USB. When I got my focus I simply couldn't be bothered with the faff or expense, especially because I didn't plan on having it long so I just listened to my phone via earphones. Honestly I never really had much of an issue, I could see giant blue lights in my mirrors so I knew when to pull over for emergency vehicles and nothing else was really to much of an issue.

snips86x said:
This is what annoys me the most. Even some drivers not using earphones are unable to spot emergency services!!

Shouldn't be allowed. If you want hands free, either get a headset, link it to your car or pull over.
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I disagree that earphones should be banned while driving. What you're basically saying is that deaf & hard of hearing people can't drive either, so they should all be banned from driving at the same time. It also means the highest end cars that are super insulted from noise need to be altered so that the driver can hear everything outside, even with the stereo on. Sound just isn't really a necessity when driving.
 
tbh i would say my windows block out most noise so if i did wear headphones i cant see it causing a problem. If you need hearing to drive and avoid cars imo you shouldn't be driving.
 
Don't see the problem, my mates Merc has double glazing you cant here anything once inside with the stereo even on a low volume.
 
theone8181 said:
tbh i would say my windows block out most noise so if i did wear headphones i cant see it causing a problem. If you need hearing to drive and avoid cars imo you shouldn't be driving.
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Minstadave said:
Don't be daft, hearing is an important part of awareness of what's around you. I can drive with one eye closed, if you need both eyes to drive you shouldn't be driving.
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Agreed, that a ridiculous comment!!
 
mccarf said:
I disagree that earphones should be banned while driving.
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Why? Why should it be legal/a good idea to intentionally block out one of your senses when driving just because you want to listen to Katy Perry's new album and you can't be bothered to just fit a £50 iPod headunit?

mccarf said:
What you're basically saying is that deaf & hard of hearing people can't drive either, so they should all be banned from driving at the same time.
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It's not the same at all. Deaf people drive because the benefits to them outweigh the risks. However, a person will all their senses choosing to block on of them out is stupid. A person with all their senses will be more aware of things going on than someone missing their hearing.

mccarf said:
It also means the highest end cars that are super insulted from noise need to be altered so that the driver can hear everything outside, even with the stereo on.
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Even the most insulated of cars will not give the same level of sensory deprivation as someone with earphones in their ear AND them playing music loudly.

mccarf said:
Sound just isn't really a necessity when driving.
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Oh really? Bold statement, which also incidentally happens to be utter balls. Perhaps you can tell that to the bloke i dealt with just today. He was in the High Street, checked his mirrors, and started slowly reversing his big 4x4 not realising there was a young lady stood behind the car, in his blind spot, chatting to a friend, who he knocked to the ground and who the wheels were about to roll over when passers by in the street starting shouting to him to stop. It was only then that he stopped. He would have literally just rolled his 2.3ton car over her, probably killing her, in front of a busy high street of people/kids/elderly - if he had had earphones in.
 
You would be opening yourself up to more serious charges as well I suspect. Ok it's rare, but then it's not something people have been doing at all barely until the last year or two.

See people doing this when skiing as well now and they tend to be completely oblivious to what's going on about them.
 
mccarf said:
What you're basically saying is that deaf & hard of hearing people can't drive either, so they should all be banned from driving at the same time.
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That's not really true, as hearing people are used to being able to hear, and so rely on that as a sense. It is commonly believed (and rightly so I think) that those permanently missing a sense essentially make up for it with the other senses - they learn to enhance their use of other senses.
 
I've seen a fair few people do that and it annoys me. The worse thing is that some are driving brand new cars including Mercs and the likes. Surely these cars have an aux in port at least that they could hook their phones/mp3 players to and have even better quality audio... and yet they still wear their earphones.
 
mccarf said:
I disagree that earphones should be banned while driving. What you're basically saying is that deaf & hard of hearing people can't drive either, so they should all be banned from driving at the same time.
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It's not the same thing. A deaf person is probably more likely to be 100% concentrating on the road as they don't have any audio to distract them, headphones are a huge distraction just the same as having the radio blaring is a huge distraction. Just because it isn't covering your eyes doesn't make it any less of a distraction.
 
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