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UK: New Drivers Caught Using a Phone Will Lose Their License (bbc.com)
Under new rules in England, Scotland and Wales, drivers caught using a phone within two years of passing their test will have their license revoked. BBC reports: Penalties for using a phone at the wheel double from March 1 to six points and a 200 British pound fine. New drivers who get six points or more must retake their practical and theory. More experienced drivers can be banned if they get 12 points in three years. Can I check social media or texts if I'm queuing in traffic or stopped at traffic lights? No -- a hand held phone cannot be used, even if stopped at lights. Texting and scrolling social media (even if the phone is mounted on a hands-free holder) is distracting and dangerous. It doesn't come under the handheld mobile phone law but the police may decide to charge you with a number of other offenses. Can I use my phone to listen to music, play podcasts or watch video clips? You can't watch video clips -- not even if your phone is mounted in a hands-free holder. You can use your phone to listen to music and podcasts but only if your phone is in a hands-free holder or connected by Bluetooth. However, just as you can be distracted by the noise of a car radio, if it affects your ability to drive safely, you could still be prosecuted by the police. Can I use my phone's sat nav? Yes -- as long as the phone is mounted in a hands-free holder. If it's in your hands, it's illegal. However, if you are distracted by the sat nav and it affects your ability to drive safely, you could still be prosecuted by the police.
I would love it if we could have such a great law put in place here. If your cellphone is so freaken important for you, pull over and take care of it. If you must talk on the phone while you drive, get a bluetooth device. I think most cars have bluetooth support as well. My basic civic does.
We need that in the United States too.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/499...
and that's why.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Its about time.
There are similar laws currently in Australia:
https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.a...
Those rules sound pretty reasonable. If you use it in a way that takes your attention away from the road, it's forbidden. If it doesn't, it's OK.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Why is common sense news? Shut up and drive.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
It seems that the number of distracted people hurt in distraction accidents is related to how much traffic calming used in the local area. Around here when they drop speed limits on roads with many shops from 60 km/hr to 40, the number of people jay walking increases and areas where there were a few near misses a year turn into a minor injuries per year.
In the high traffic areas that are now pedestrian and tram only areas, the tram drivers are having far more emergency stops which can injure passengers. A nurse has told me that the number of people who are getting hurt in falls because they were run into by other pedestrians seems to keep going up.
1) Pass so many laws that noone can be aware of all of them
2) Most people will break at least one law everyday (especially since they will not be enforced strictly)
3) Randomly pull people over and if you dont find anything serious prosecute them on the bullshit laws which they and everyone else are breaking
4) Offer plea deals and punitive punishments for those who insist for their day in court
Once you do this all normal citizens are scared of the police. its even worse for unfavored minorities. You can have a police state while maintaining the fiction of a democracy and rule of law.
**Life is too short to be serious**
no phone-checking in running vehicles if you are YOUNG ( two years after passing test ). then OLD, then while (fill in the blank), then.....
military contractors,
police
law enforcement in general
emmisaries and dipkomats
everyone but you
etc.
I always wondered what happened to SuperNanny when the show was canceled. I see she is now Prime Minister.
I'm a ham radio operator and like other hams, am nervous that these laws might fringe on 2-way radio usage...
...as when I used to do long-distance journeys a few years ago, I always listened to music & podcasts on my phone via headphones, with the phone in my top pocket, set up with a playlist at the start of the journey. From the written advice given at the time, I've always believed this to be legal until now. Was my understanding faulty in the first place, or has this now changed?
What if it's in a hands-free holder with a headphone lead coming out of it? (Hope not, that would be silly as it might get in the way...)
Or, playing Devil's Advocate, what if it was in my top pocket, but connected only by Bluetooth?
Better wording required.
end of uber in the UK? or will they just have drivers with no License picking people up?
before your next eye exam? Ok, maybe not in the UK, be seriously. I don't have to prove I can still drive until I'm in my mid 60s...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You aren't allowed to check your phone while stopped at a light. You are allowed to have a conversation while driving, as long as you use a hands-free system.
Those are both bad laws.
Force all of the pedestrians who walk staring into their phones to use the same roads as drivers caught using theirs. Let Darwin's law reign supreme!
react accordingly, - lowering speed and switching on the emergency light blinking. This is what should be called a self-driving car.
I do not understand how car manufacturers get away with it - building cars with 320 km/h speedometers, and at the same time not installing driver's alcohol detector, driver's mobile phone detector, etc.
At the same time more than a million people get killed by these cars each year and millions are wounded. These are WW3 figures.
Problems when only rich people had them.
I just want to point out that S.Petry's comment above is in a discussion of a law making it illegal to watch fucking movies while you're driving.
You are welcome on my lawn.
...in the BBC report, you shouldn't be driving at all.
Way back in 2000 I was walking across a street in broad daylight. I had cross there several times a week for months (new apartment) with no problem. This large pickup comes along and didn't slow for me a bit. If I had not backpedaled my last step I wouldn't be here to post this.
Driver was on a cell phone.
So, we should see advertising billboards along roads removed because they are specifically designed to grab peoples attention.
What billboards? The UK already has strict rules limiting the placement of billboards along motorways and majors roads for exactly this reason which is why so see so few.
Yeah, imagine if a kid walked by and saw one of those fucking movies! ;-)
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Caught with a phone whilst driving a multi ton vehicle ? Ban the fuckers for life.No ifs, no buts.
Then you are a moron. The single biggest factor in all traffic accidents is distraction and the ever growing source of distraction is the mobile phone. I was at a safety talk about road accidents and someone posed the question of "Well why don't we just ban the use of phones in cars completely?!" It's a good point, I think we should. But the answer wasn't a for or against it was simply that people will continue to do it due to a false sense of security. "I've used my phone on the last 99 road trips I have taken and nothing has happened, nothing will happen on trip 100!" or "I've used my phone while driving for the past 20 years, nothing will happen tomorrow!" Until it does. And you miss the car driven by a single mother who is running a bit late and misjudges a gap in traffic and you plough into her car and kill her. It can take less than 2 seconds for the situation to change in front of you, I wonder how long you look at your phone for? I would put money down to say there are times when it's longer than 2 seconds.
It's flippant and moronic to throw out "Oh we should ban the use of a steering wheel as well!". What POSSIBLE use of a phone do you have that you need to use it while driving? All new cars have bluetooth. Older cars can be retro fitted. You can make calls easily. But there is zero reason to pick up your phone and text while driving, nothing is that important. If it is, then you shouldn't be driving anyway.
I can't think of a sane reason to differentiate between people who recently obtaine their driving licence and those who have had it for longer. Using a phone is equally distracting and dangerous for both groups.
? They can. For the first 2 years after passing your test (no matter your age, e.g. if you pass your test aged 50 you only have 6 points to lose) if you accrue > 6 points in a 3 yr period you lose your licence After you've held* your licence for 2 years if you accrue > 12 points in a 3 yr period you lose your licence. *Personally I think this is stupid as you could have it for years without actually having driven since passing your test. I know that after I passed my test I only drove a few times in the first year or so as I didn't have my own car. You should have to prove (I don't know how ;-) ) a certain number of hours of driving before your allowance goes up to 12. I also think there should be mandatory retests every 5 years or else your licence expires.
5) Disarm the general public
6) kill free speech
The UK is right on track.
One thing I always feel about the UK is that it muddles along, understated and common. There's a wartime picture of a row of houses which have been bombed out, and the wife, in her little headscarf and coat, is stepping out the front door (what's left of it) to find her husband some milk for breakfast. I always think that sums up the British character. Unmoved, muddle along, and if there is a crisis, it's that we're out of Jaffa Cakes.
The Americans on the other hand, always have "a situation" and it has to be big like a mountain. Everything has to be big and impressive. I recall the time an American tourist stepped out of his van to ask me directions to the "University campus". I tried to explain that the small town didn't have a campus, rather the university buildings were all scattered about the town (after all it had grown over a thousand years). But no, he says, "No you don't understand, I want the University campus!" Which left me a little bemused as having lived there for years, I'd never come across this "campus" he spoke of, so I waved him towards town where he'd see a bunch of old buildings.
Point is, I don't think guns and phones matter much to whether this is a free country. It is all in the intangible subtleties of the culture. It is in the common sense of the people. If that goes, we're fucked.
even in those instances where you can use your phone (music, navigating if phone is in a stand) the police can still prosecute you. It feels random and just something they can get you with if they want to.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
So the UK bans something super dangerous and everyone loves it and wants it here. How about non-hunting guns? Oh we can't have that in the United Selfish of America.
I usually put on makeup or do a crossword puzzle. But use a phone while driving? Never! Not only is it dangerous, it is illegal.
or do you simply have a personal attack because I am correct?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Put the phone down and drive. If you are so important that you have to really be on your phone all the time...you'd have your own driver.
Point is, I don't think guns and phones matter much to whether this is a free country. It is all in the intangible subtleties of the culture. It is in the common sense of the people. If that goes, we're fucked.
Unfortunately that is simply false. When the Government is setup to be a tyranny, it only takes the right person in office to make it so. The "common sense" of the people should never let the Government get to the point where it's people have no natural rights (personal liberty).
Many Western countries are setup just like the UK, where the wrong person in power means absolute tyranny. It's taken the UK about 15 years to kill free speech, but anything today deemed "hate speech" will land you in jail. The UK, France, and countless others used to be the Bastions of Free speech that everyone else tried to emulate. Not any longer.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not enough space on the shoulders. Although, the benefit would be, the roads would be not as congested with everyone on the shoulder yacking away.
I was pulled off a road, backed up along an entrance to a pasture that had a gate, doing some texting for work. A sheriff's deputy tapped on my window. Wanted to know if I was ok. Said when he passed by it looked like I was slumped over the wheel. I said no, I just had some texting for work to do, and pulled off the road to do it. I think he about fell over and had a heart attack. It's just not worth it to text/drive. If I'm on the phone, if it is an important, or detailed phone call, I'll pop into a parking lot because I get animated sometimes with my hands and I know good and well my concentration is on the call and not the road. Once, I was on an extended call, and I got to my destination and DON'T REMEMBER how I got there. I use hands free 100% but the distraction is still present.
The post was an extension of another comment. Why can't you read and follow a simple conversation? Truth hurt too bad? SJWs with mod points should lose their rights to have them.
Yes, well, that kind of went by the board here (USA) when stupid, and/or lazy, and/or ignorant people ended up being the ones writing the laws.
If you want to prevent an incompetent from doing harm driving, you don't issue them a driver's license. You don't proffer rules that tell them to do things that you can't actually make them do. To allow the incompetent to control a multi-ton death machine because you're too damned stupid, lazy, or ignorant to create an effective set of qualifying metrics is just a sure way to make a bad problem worse. Welcome to driver licensing 101.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Touch screens are generally distracting, because you have to look at them to operate. By this definition, operating a cell phone while driving is bad. Yet car companies seem to be making more and more car controls work via touch screen. This needs to change too.
There's no real safety concern with people texting while stopped at a stoplight.
Really? Because when I went to driver training, one of the things they tell you is to watch your mirrors for what's going on around you. That way if there's a car coming up from behind you might be able to get out of the way. It also ensures you're aware if some kid chases a ball past your front bumper.
Be realistic. Most people who are texting on the damn phone are oblivious. They either glance up and see the light has changed, or do so when they get honked at, then gun it through the intersection without ensuring that it's safe to do so. There are real (and intelligent) reasons NOT to allow texting even when stopped at a light. If you need to text, pull the f*** off the road.
All-American, anti-regulation gun enthuse, I'm all for this. And I usually think the UK is a nanny state.
Point is, I don't think guns and phones matter much to whether this is a free country. It is all in the intangible subtleties of the culture. It is in the common sense of the people. If that goes, we're fucked.
Unfortunately that is simply false. When the Government is setup to be a tyranny, it only takes the right person in office to make it so. The "common sense" of the people should never let the Government get to the point where it's people have no natural rights (personal liberty).
Many Western countries are setup just like the UK, where the wrong person in power means absolute tyranny. It's taken the UK about 15 years to kill free speech, but anything today deemed "hate speech" will land you in jail. The UK, France, and countless others used to be the Bastions of Free speech that everyone else tried to emulate. Not any longer.
I don't know enough about the politics to know whether you're right. One thing though, my point for what it is worth, is that you seem to be looking at the external aspects, like, what are the laws and do people have arms, whereas I'm wondering more about the internal aspects, what do ordinary people, and politicians, in this country, feel is common sense and appropriate. For example, law says you have to divulge your encryption password, or be thrown in jail for 2 years. But I don't, as far as I know, see this law being abused. It is probably there mainly to catch the bad people.
You are right, if the laws make it easy for tyrants, then the first tyrant could take over... but I figure it is more about the character of the institutions which are commonplace in the nation. So instead of looking at gun ownership, I'd look at the corruption index listing. How corrupt is the ordinary person, politician, and crucially, civil servant?
If too many people, including civil servants, the intelligence agencies, and all manner of government institutions, are all reasonably honest, and don't like corruption, then it is hard for a tyrant to really get a grip on anything. That I think is far more important than gun ownership. In other words, if one needs guns, then one has other, worse problems. The "mafia" was called "our thing" because people didn't trust the government.
Corruption is corruption. It is no different if the government is corrupt or the corruption is in the people, either way it is bad news. If people need guns because they believe the government is corrupt, who is going to stop the people becoming corrupt?
Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged".
It's a long book but the philosophy is solid. Society based on "intentions" and not "law" simply fail. What we see in the world today is a staggering amount of anti-science rhetoric, and the creation and use of criminal charges for simply thinking a way someone dislikes.
I can't make you learn politics quite as easily, but recommend you read the Federalist Papers which contain thoughts regarding why the US was established the way it was. Plato's "The Republic" is probably a good primer since we get foundations of Justice, Liberty, and critical thought from that book,
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.