Matt1962 wrote:TripleS wrote:jont- wrote:Astraist wrote:Also, the law isn't quite so dynamic and flexible as to accommodate for every piece of up-to-date research.
Or indeed technology. That's why I come back to keep it simple - police for and prosecute for DWDCA. Why do you need anything else?
You don't need anything else; I agree with you.
The politicians are far too busy making rules that in many cases make no sense, and the mobile phones/driving law is an example of that. The distinction between hand-held and hands-free phone usage by drivers is quite illogical, but I don't suppose they will bother to amend it to a more sensible form.
I don't really understand why the distinction is 'illogical'? Holding and operating a device is by definition always going to impair a driver to a significant degree, whereas a device operating through the car systems may or may not be distracting the driver (the choice is that of the driver).
Well my impression was this:
First the criticism was that the use of hand held phones by drivers meant that only one hand was available for controlling the vehicle, i.e. principally steering and making gear changes etc.; and this was felt to be unsatisfactory hence the ban on the use of hand-held phones. I don't believe the problem here was as great as officialdom deemed it to be, but the ban was introduced and that was that.
Then some research emerged that purported to show that the
principal danger created by the use of mobile phones by drivers was actually the distracting effect of carrying on a conversation with some remote person, i.e. somebody other than a passenger. To my mind this factor
could be significant, and yet hands-free phone usage remains lawful and hand-held phone usage is not. That's what I feel to be illogical.
Quite frankly I think they should have left the whole issue alone, and simply used the existing laws relating to 'not being in proper control' of a vehicle, whenever a driver is clearly seen to be failing to meet his obligations in that respect.
As things stand at the moment we have lots of drivers being prosecuted for contravening the law, when in fact they are not creating any problem whatsoever.