“In four years Mike van Erp has filmed 1,400 drivers using their phones, leading to 1,800 penalty points, £110,000 of fines — and him being assaulted by disgruntled motorists. Is he a road safety hero or just a darned nuisance? Nick Rufford joins him on patrol”
I’ve watched a few of his videos. I should be surprised that he catches so many drivers in their phones, but in and around London? Not surprised at all.
I don’t agree.
Being stopped in traffic is part of driving.
If being able to drive is so critical to personal freedom or for work, there’s all the more reason to ensure performance and compliance with the law.
Compliance with the law is assured by connecting up the phone to an appropriate system or leaving it well alone. Rather than taking the phone from the friend in your scenario, ask them to deal with it.
Do you intervene when the safety law is broken, or do you wait until after an incident has occurred?
Road safety laws are there for a reason. Many are written in blood.
What additional danger is posed by someone distracted by their phone stopped in traffic if they’re holding it in their hand, as opposed to it being on a hands-free mount?
The main difference is the tendency to take your eyes off the road to look at your phone and the tendency to want to interact with the screen and any buttons; more likely in the hand held scenario.
Some studies have shown that driving while taking a call was distracting whether or not a handheld or hands-free phone was used, but as I understand things it was felt that enforcing an outright ban on using a mobile phone would be more difficult than banning the use of a handheld phone.
Source: the lovely people at RoSPA - a pdf link to one of their factsheets is here
I first came across them when trying to understand the evidence base for booster seats and the age / weight cut-offs that were being used; enormously helpful people.
Thanks for your comment. I think everyone is really taking my comments out of context.
My point is that the law is objectively bullshit. If the reason for banning phone use was to reduce accidents caused by phones, then why would there be an explicit ban on using phones even while completely stopped, which has a very minor risk to safety, but at the same time, there’s an explicit allowance for the use of handsfree phones, which has a much, much higher risk to safety? It doesn’t make sense at all if you look at it from that perspective.
I think that the laws of our society should be just and sensible. If they’re arbitrary, then they’re bad laws and should be revised.
