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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.

1 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Re:prison nation by kenh · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    We should all get together and start voting against those sorts of authorities.

    Yes, let's start voting out politicians that justify any intrusion into everyone's personal liberties to protect the smallest/weakest among us, we'll only vote for people that promise to repeal intrusive and unconstitutional laws and regulations, you know - like Trump.

    --
    Ken