CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
"The only consolation is that they now won't be involved in some horrific crash caused by the distraction of a handheld mobile phone," he added
I would say it is a <Rule 2> massive consolation and proof that (on however small a percentage of cases) that the law is working.
So car addiction will be overcome by mobile phone addition.
Like methadone instead of heroin....
The "only" consolation is they won't kill someone! Well I guess you take what you can get eh?
RAC road safety spokesman Pete Williams said the figures were "sad" to see.
Speak for yourself. I think this is great.
Speak for yourself. I think this is great.
I presume he means it is sad to see so many people using their phones whilst driving. Although if he didn't already know that so many people use their phones whilst driving, I have even bigger questions about his role as RAC's safety spokesman.
The RAC's Mr Williams said: "These people have spent hours and hours and hundreds of pounds learning to drive to gain their personal freedom only to throw it all away through this foolish behaviour."
That's a very revealing statement about ingrained attitudes to driving in this country.
"Safety officer" indeed.
Good riposte in the comments section:
---
So 18% of those caught are new drivers, yet you focus on these and not the 82% of experience drivers who bloody well should know better.
What a ludicrous standpoint to take.
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@frenchy
Although if he didn't already know that so many people use their phones whilst driving, I have even bigger questions about his role as RAC's safety spokesman.
That was my thought, too. If he didn't already know how widespread this problem is, does he even use the roads?
This is less than 100/day. How many hours would you have to cycle around Edinburgh until you saw 100 people breaking this law?
3 hours?
@crowdriver
The RAC's Mr Williams said: "These people have spent hours and hours and hundreds of pounds learning to drive to gain their personal freedom only to throw it all away through this foolish behaviour."
How about
"These people are utterly unfit to drive, but despite this, have recently been given licenses. There's clearly not enough vetting of learners."
@gibbo
"foolish" = RAC speak for "grossly irresponsible".
And "personal freedom" - Grrr - as if driving a metal box about equated with human and civil rights.
3 hours?
Quite confident that if you stood at a junction like Gilmerton or Kaimes crossroads you'd see a hundred in half an hour.
@Rosie, it's the post-1960s equivalent of receiving a symbolic golden key when you reach 21 years of age. Rite of passage to adulthood, etc.
Which is why it is a fiendishly difficult genie to put back in the bottle.
@crowriver - whatever happened to spending a month in the wilderness spearing your own food as an initiation into adulthood? (manhood really). Followed by tattoos and other mutilations.
tattoos and other mutilations
This is going to get ugly.
Agony & Etiquette Aunt - am I required to comfort a teenager who killed my cat while driving and texting?
"These people are utterly unfit to drive, but despite this, have recently been given licenses. There's clearly not enough vetting of learners."
To reuse somebody else's coining, any test procedure will encourage "Volkswagening", where the agent will perform as expected only under test conditions.
I'm not sure who did the maths but I make it about 2% not 18% that are new drivers. It seems they are the ones who are behaving assuming and even spread of licence ages.
Either it is 2900 new drivers and therefore 18% or @acsimpson is right.
“assuming an even spread of licence ages”
You mean assuming that most new drivers aren’t teenagers?
No I was meaning the length of time people have held there licences. 2% of penalties given to drivers within the first 2 years of having a licence must be less than the average for all other 2 year brackets.
What we don't know here is how large each bracket is.
American perspective on the numbers of deaths caused by smartphoning while driving; also the electronic devices' manufacturers lobbying against it.
http://barristerblogger.com/2018/01/03/law-using-mobile-phone-driving-date-incomprehensible-mess/
"until someone is killed in an accident – the higher courts have not been asked to give any authoritative ruling, even though the Regulation has been in place since 2003. (The Regulation is applicable in Scotland and there has recently been a somewhat inconclusive case1 in the Sherriff Appeals Court, which is binding on Sherriff Courts in Scotland, although only of persuasive value in England)."
Nice ruling.as both officers recognised the item from one metre away as a mobile phone it was therefore a mobile phone and was not required t be produced as evidence. Van driver retrospectively claiming it was a black notebook, though not at the time of his crime.
Anomalies in mobile phone usage laws:-
Not okay to use it as a mobile phone, okay to use it as a camera or SatNav.
"Any use of a hand-held electronic device while driving is potentially dangerous and should be clearly banned. The current law allows some, but not all such usage, and does so on no rational basis whatever. It manages to be arbitrary, inconsistent, incomprehensible, unpredictable, and unworkable."
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/the-law-on-using-a-phone-while-driving-is-a-complete-mess/
I thought this was already established. Jimmy Carr got off with it in 2009 by claiming that he was using the voice recorder on his phone to record a joke he thought of whilst driving.
Is that ruling only applicable in E&W? It appears from the article Ed1 linked last year that an item being identified as a mobile phone by police officers is sufficient without having to prove it's being used as a phone.
@acsimpson - Maybe. I assumed laws about speeding, dangerous driving etc would be UK wide. Have I got that wrong?
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