Two-thirds of drivers 'unaware of mobile penalties'

*shrug* the last thing I worked on locked out various functions once various driver work load conditions were met.
 
i don't get it, hands free is a thing now (and not even expensive) and how on earth do people text and drive with modern touch screen phones?

i have hands free through the stereo, and my standard answer to anyone complaining about the audio quality is "i'm driving, you're lucky i bothered to answer at all"

if it's important pull over, if it isn't then you deserve everything you get....
 
GeX said:
I see this a lot, and it isn't the same at all. The HMI in a car infotainment system undergoes testing / study wrt distraction, what can or cannot be enabled at various times etc to ensure it's safe to use whilst driving. Your phone does not.

(source; I'm an automotive software engineer)
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Mine locks nothing out at any time. Even the air con is via the screen.
 
jigger said:
I'd be fine with a ban for using a phone while driving. No points, no fine just a ban. Same goes for people that focus on more on sat nav directions than actual road signs and what is happening around them. God knows how many accident sat nav's have been a configuring factor in.
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It's an interesting comment, and I know of a prime example. Anyone who's familiar with the M6 northbound, I think just after jct 10 where it joins back with the M6 toll. The outside lane splits off and kind of goes up a hill a little, whilst the 2 left lanes steer left a bit, both merge with the M6 toll just at slightly different points.

Anyway, you can always tell if someone's following their sat nav because they'll be driving in the middle lane, and just before the road splits you see them swerve to lane 3, even though there is no traffic in lanes 1 or 2 for a considerable distance. The amount of times I've almost seen an accident because people don't read the road signs and realise that all 3 lanes end up on the M6 still.
 
Jumper118 said:
lol. i have never been in a car where it doesnt let you change anything on the screen while driving yet.
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My head unit won't allow you to play DVD's while moving but that can be hacked out.

Also, I use Waze which throws a message if used while moving, but once you tell it you're the passenger it allows you to use it fine.
 
Jumper118 said:
what about they ban all touch screen from cars and replace them with these amazing things called buttons whichyou can feel and change things while driving without looking. it is dumb to ban someone touching a phone or a satnav which are normally mounted high on the dash or windscreen vs a oem unit which is normally half way down the dash.
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That would be fun for Tesla owners.
 
adolf hamster said:
i don't get it, hands free is a thing now (and not even expensive) and how on earth do people text and drive with modern touch screen phones?

i have hands free through the stereo, and my standard answer to anyone complaining about the audio quality is "i'm driving, you're lucky i bothered to answer at all"

if it's important pull over, if it isn't then you deserve everything you get....
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Absolutely this. Saw a tweet from Lancs road police earlier today where they'd caught someone with their phone on speaker and held up against their face. The car actually had built in hands free, yet the driver chose not to use it. £200 and 6 points might make them reconsider going forward. Madness.
 
AHarvey said:
My head unit won't allow you to play DVD's while moving but that can be hacked out.

Also, I use Waze which throws a message if used while moving, but once you tell it you're the passenger it allows you to use it fine.
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Fair enough you can't watch a film while driving. That is sensible.

Having a work around where you can say you are the passenger furthers the danger because you aren't looking where you are going for that extra bit of time.

Malevolence said:
That would be fun for Tesla owners.
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It would be a problem for the manufacturers not the owners. They could not ban all cars from having touch screens, only new models.
 
GeX said:
Interesting. I'm sure last time I looked the official line on this was, "We don't want your dashcam footage as we don't have time to even review it". Wonder if it various from force to force.
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I put one on Facebook and a a day later a Copper friend told me to remove it because he had passed it on.
The bloke was made to go on a course which was a result because he didn't think he had done anything wrong.
 
A mate's Jaguar used to allow the front passenger to watch TV whilst the driver had sat-nav visible - both full-screen and on the same bloody screen. It was definitely some form of dark magick.
 
Kenai said:
I took a trip up to Luton airport the other week to drop someone off, M3, M25 and M1 - it was absolutely frightening the number of people constantly looking down at their laps doing 70mph along the motorway (I didn't drive on the way back, before anyone wants to be smart about me not paying attention to the road).
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This. It's actually nuts when you look at them for a considerable amount of time because they spend so much more time looking at the phone than the road. It's like a few seconds looking down at lap, super quick glance at road to check there are no immediate obstacles, few seconds looking down at lap. It's scary.
 
Skillmister said:
This. It's actually nuts when you look at them for a considerable amount of time because they spend so much more time looking at the phone than the road. It's like a few seconds looking down at lap, super quick glance at road to check there are no immediate obstacles, few seconds looking down at lap. It's scary.
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Yeah it's terrifying, I drive 130 miles down the M1 and around the M25 twice a week and I'll see a dozen or so people every time without fail using phones at 70 mph on the motorway. Makes me pretty angry that people paying such little attention are on the same road as me or loved ones.

The best one I saw was a woman in the middle lane doing 50 mph with the phone up to her ear and an HGV sitting about 1 meter from her rear bumper, she was completely oblivious to it.

It's a shame we don't have the manpower/funding to get more motorway cops on the road, they'd probably pay for themselves at £200 a pop per FPN!
 
Dunks said:
Yeah it's terrifying, I drive 130 miles down the M1 and around the M25 twice a week and I'll see a dozen or so people every time without fail using phones at 70 mph on the motorway. Makes me pretty angry that people paying such little attention are on the same road as me or loved ones.

The best one I saw was a woman in the middle lane doing 50 mph with the phone up to her ear and an HGV sitting about 1 meter from her rear bumper, she was completely oblivious to it.

It's a shame we don't have the manpower/funding to get more motorway cops on the road, they'd probably pay for themselves at £200 a pop per FPN!
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In the same way you get retained firemen and "on call" rescue services like the RNLI, I'd like to be a part time motorway cop on my commute and other long motorway journeys. Just go about my day but have the ability to enforce these problems.
 
People's addiction to their phones is getting very worrying indeed :(

I see people every day driving along whilst on their phone.

It worries me greatly having to share the roads with these morons :(
 
Semple said:
It's an interesting comment, and I know of a prime example. Anyone who's familiar with the M6 northbound, I think just after jct 10 where it joins back with the M6 toll. The outside lane splits off and kind of goes up a hill a little, whilst the 2 left lanes steer left a bit, both merge with the M6 toll just at slightly different points.

Anyway, you can always tell if someone's following their sat nav because they'll be driving in the middle lane, and just before the road splits you see them swerve to lane 3, even though there is no traffic in lanes 1 or 2 for a considerable distance. The amount of times I've almost seen an accident because people don't read the road signs and realise that all 3 lanes end up on the M6 still.
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Distracted drivers are probably the biggest danger I see on the road. Sadly though we seem focussed on prosecuting drivers for even the most minor speeding offences while driving safely.
 
IvanDobskey said:
People's addiction to their phones is getting very worrying indeed :(

I see people every day driving along whilst on their phone.

It worries me greatly having to share the roads with these morons :(
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At one time it was basically drivers talking on their phones but for quite a while now you can visibly see them texting/Facebook'ing.
Holding a phone up to the hear is the least of a major problem.
 
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