Drivers face fine and points if they use phone at drive-thru

Werewolf said:
A drive through lane would almost certainly be covered for offences under the Road Traffic Act etc.

Farmers fields are covered if you've got any publicly accessible event going on, so for 364 days a year a farmer might be free to let his friends drive uninsured and untaxed vehicles on it with unlicensed drivers filming it on their mobiles, but the one day a year they hold a car boot sale at one end of the field the law would apply and most of the driving laws would have to be upheld (IIRC a farmers son was done for driving uninsured in a car a few years back because there was a car boot sale on at the far end of the field).
So I can see a very good case being made for it applying on a stretch of "private" road that people are moving through in vehicles, which is what a drive through lane is as the conditions are all being met.
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Interesting. This seems to be precisely one of those legislation changes that will not serve any purpose to protect the public but is there to do nothing but punish people. How many accidents have their been at drive throughs whilst people were using apple pay?
Any enforcement of this is precisely one of the things that destroys the public relationship that the police seem to be bending over backwards to try and promote at the minute.
 
You would have to be the biggest jobby jobsworth cop to start fining people at drive-throughs :D

Though it will probably take priority over car thefts and burglaries.
 
Dis86 said:
Interesting. This seems to be precisely one of those legislation changes that will not serve any purpose to protect the public but is there to do nothing but punish people. How many accidents have their been at drive throughs whilst people were using apple pay?
Any enforcement of this is precisely one of the things that destroys the public relationship that the police seem to be bending over backwards to try and promote at the minute.
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I don't think it even requires any new legislation.

The police have been able to do you for various motoring offences on "private" land for a long time, as long as the "public" have unrestricted access to it at that time, a car park with no barrier is "public" for the purposes of a number of offences, but the moment you put a barrier down it may not be (so a locked up car park isn't, but the same one with the gate locked open for the day is).
All it require is a change in guidance.

However I suspect it won't be used unless there is either an incident (IE an accident) or they're already charging the person with other offences and want to make an example.
 
Dis86 said:
Interesting. This seems to be precisely one of those legislation changes that will not serve any purpose to protect the public but is there to do nothing but punish people. How many accidents have their been at drive throughs whilst people were using apple pay?
Any enforcement of this is precisely one of the things that destroys the public relationship that the police seem to be bending over backwards to try and promote at the minute.
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It's not a legislative change to punish people for using their phones at a drivethrough. The change was brought in to close a loophole where drivers could escape prosecution for such things as playing games, scrolling playlists or taking photos.
 
Werewolf said:
I don't think it even requires any new legislation.

The police have been able to do you for various motoring offences on "private" land for a long time, as long as the "public" have unrestricted access to it at that time, a car park with no barrier is "public" for the purposes of a number of offences, but the moment you put a barrier down it may not be (so a locked up car park isn't, but the same one with the gate locked open for the day is).
All it require is a change in guidance.

However I suspect it won't be used unless there is either an incident (IE an accident) or they're already charging the person with other offences and want to make an example.
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The issue is, as nasher and a few others have said there is that jobsworth police officer who will charge someone.
I recently dealt with this individual...

A family friend who owns a farm recently had some delightful members of the friendly travelling community (allegedly) break in to some of his land and remain there despite his requests to leave. They insisted that the gate had been left wide open and they certainly didn't cut the lock off.
They also certainly didn't fly tip. They didn't dump human and animal waste in his hedges. And they most definitely didn't set fire to his bee hives.
We know this because when they were finally removed and the police were present one of the officers there threatened to charge us with a hate crime when we pointed these things out "without proof" and generalising based upon the ethnicity of those present. At least the other officer with him had the decency to look embarrassed.
 
Surveyor said:
It's not a legislative change to punish people for using their phones at a drivethrough. The change was brought in to close a loophole where drivers could escape prosecution for such things as playing games, scrolling playlists or taking photos.
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That wasn't really a loophole. That was just bad legislation, specifically stating that that devices had to be used for communication purposes. You could still charge people with driving without due care etc...
 
Won’t drive through be technically private land and therefore the Highway Code don’t apply? May be not all of them but some of them?
 
Dis86 said:
That wasn't really a loophole. That was just bad legislation, specifically stating that that devices had to be used for communication purposes. You could still charge people with driving without due care etc...
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Loophole or badly written it's still the reason the legislation was changed. Nothing to do with punishing people using their phone at a drive-through though that may be a consequence.
 
Surveyor said:
Loophole or badly written it's still the reason the legislation was changed. Nothing to do with punishing people using their phone at a drive-through though that may be a consequence.
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Hence why I said they'd struggle.
 
@Werewolf is correct. Any road, including private land, that is publically accessible falls under the RTA. In terms of car parks on private land, eg drive-thrus, supermarkets etc, they are deemed publically accessible during opening hours.
 
Dis86 said:
The issue is, as nasher and a few others have said there is that jobsworth police officer who will charge someone.
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Just turn your engine off, pay, then turn it on again.
I wonder how it works with stop-start cars? Is your engine technically "running" if it's not turning but ready to start immediately with stop-start?
 
Surveyor said:
Struggle or not with the drive through scenario you were mistaken when you said this was a change in legislation that will not serve any purpose to protect the public.
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Could the drivers not have been charged with driving without due care prior to this change?
 
Resident said:
@Werewolf is correct. Any road, including private land, that is publically accessible falls under the RTA. In terms of car parks on private land, eg drive-thrus, supermarkets etc, they are deemed publically accessible during opening hours.
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so I am breaking the law by sitting on my drive picking podcast on my phone before driving off?
 
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