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Man Caught Wearing Earbuds With a Dead Phone Found Guilty of Distracted Driving (www.cbc.ca)
Freshly Exhumed writes: RCMP officers spotted a man driving with earbuds plugged into his iPhone. The phone was not in his hands nor on his lap, was not playing music or video, and the driver was not using it to talk to someone or navigate. The battery was, in fact, completely dead. Nonetheless, a judge has ruled that "by plugging the earbud wire into the iPhone, the defendant had enlarged the device, such that it included not only the iPhone (proper) but also attached speaker or earbuds," he wrote. "Since the earbuds were part of the electronic device and since the earbuds were in the defendant's ears, it necessarily follows that the defendant was holding the device (or part of the device) in a position in which it could be used, i.e. his ears." On the question of the battery, the judge said he relied on a 2015 precedent set in a Canadian provincial court, which says that holding an electronic device in a position where it could be used constitutes an offense, even if it is temporarily not working.
What is the difference between having headphones in which nothing is playing, and earmuffs, or a hat that covers your ears?
In most modern cars you aren't hearing the outside really well unless the windows are opened, absurd that headphones with nothing playing are considered a problem.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If having earbud in, even if the phone is dead, constitutes distracted driving, then by having the phone in the car to begin with, you'd be guilty. In fact if this logic follows then by having any item in the car, that's not solely for the purpose of driving that car, you're breaking the law.
In those jurisdictions, is it then illegal for the hearing impaired to drive?
How do motorcyclists in North America prevent hearing damage if they are not allowed to wear earplugs? Wind noise at highway speeds can reach 110+ dB (A) on a bike without wind screen.
https://m.hear-it.org/motorcyc...
(Although the a-holes that modify the tailpipes to make them louder deserve to end up deaf.)
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Which is baloney. Some luxury cars are so well insulated you can't hear a damn thing outside -- not even road noise from your own tires. Car stereos with subwoofers are perfectly legal, even when they are loud enough to blow out windows. Hell, the windows on some cars are so small you can't see over the dash, let alone out the read quarter panel.
I used to drive forklifts for a living, and I wore earplugs to work every day. My boss threatened to suspend me if I didn't take them off, since he claimed it was a safety hazard. The irony is that he was talking to me the whole time on a noisy work floor while I was wearing my earplugs, and I clearly heard every word he said, and I told him I could hear machines honking their horns on the other side of the warehouse. In the end I won out and was allowed to do my damn job, but I still couldn't convince him that ear plugs only take the edge off, and they don't silence noise completely. Hurrah for liability paranoia.