New driving and using mobile ph regulations

This seems to be a simple increase in penalty, rather than any change in the substantive law, but as the Irish statute book website has not yet been updated to show how the existing legislation has been affected, I have not managed to locate the new legislation to confirm anything.

The pre-existing legislation refers to holding a mobile phone, meaning to support or cradle it in one's hand or other part of the body, as opposed to simply touching it.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2006/en/act/pub/0023/sec0003.html

“ hold ”, in relation to a mobile phone, means holding the phone by hand or supporting or cradling it with another part of the body

There doesn't appear to be a difficulty in just touching a mobile phone. For example, touching the screen of a phone held in a phone cradle, to use GPS, etc.

I don't see this apparent need to increase the penalty, but it seems to be seen as popular with yet another government to continue to blithely increase the severity of road traffic offences. It is irritating that successive governments resort to the same tactic time after time, without any overall strategy to achieve a reduction in road deaths, or whatever it is that they are trying to achieve.

I can't see the difficulty in setting an appropriate penalty and basically sticking to that.

I suppose that governments think that continuous increases in penalties is a policy that somehow appeases voters with short memories.

This is annoying headless-chicken type government action. I'd vote for somebody else in the next general election if there was a choice that didn't involve communists, Fianna Fáil or Shinners.

same ol sh1te wrote: »

It's not just GPS, I play my music through my phone, it connects by Bluetooth and is easily more accessible in the cradle than the car stereo, besides that, Google Play Music is a lovely clean interface.

One difference is that you have to look at the screen of a phone to interact with it because of the way a touch screen works - whereas a stereo in most cars you have tactile buttons which you don't need to pay the same level of attention to because you can feel what you are pressing.

But you have highlighted an issue with the proposed legislation - as car manufacturers install more and more "smart" devices in cars - trip computers, GPS, touch screen stereos etc. - how do you ensure you are not distracting the driver and how do you frame legislation around it.

While most of us will adopt a common sense approach and not use a device in a situation where it would be a risk, there will always be people tapping away on their phones irrespective of the traffic around them.

Metroid diorteM wrote: »

Say you're sitting in a traffic jam and you check a text message - is that illegal?

Obviously while driving/moving using a phone is retarded but if you're stuck and common sense says you won't be moving more than an inch every 5 minutes and no one is going anywhere shouldn't that be overlooked?

That scenario was always open to prosecution as far as I know
You are driving the car and need to focused on the road all the time. Traffic stopped or not.

Mikros wrote: »

I can't find the new legislation either, so this is all speculation, but my understanding is it will be a new addition to the previous offence of holding a mobile phone. It was proposed in the heads of a bill previously to close off a loophole of people texting or accessing Facebook etc. on their phone while driving when the phone is in a cradle. The wording was:

A person shall not use or handle the keypad of a hands-free mobile phone for the purposes of texting or accessing information while driving a mechanically propelled vehicle in a public place.

So this would likely include accessing GPS. In my opinion I agree with this - if your driving along your attention should be on the road - not trying to work a phone or SatNav regardless of where it is held.

Just looked at breakingnews.ie where it says that the new law will prohibit using a phone while it's in a cradle (understandable) but will also prohibit using a mobile phone on handsfree (OTT).

I'll be interested to see the wording of the legislation here.

I receive calls on handsfree and it is no more distraction to me than talking to someone in the car. Eyes on the road and hands on the wheel; if anything suffers, it's the conversation.

I hope that this isn't yet more Nanny State horsesh1t by the government.

Mikros wrote: »

But irrespective what you think, all the research would say there is an impairment to your concentration when having a conversation on a hands free kit. It's the extra cognitive load required to hold the conversation regardless of where your hands are. But there is always a trade off between what is practical or desirable to legislate for versus what is an acceptable risk.

Although I haven't found any empirical evidence that that there is an extra cognitive load required to hold a conversation, this sounds plausible and may make sense.

What does not make sense to me is what appears to be a baseless assertion (that I have read) that talking to a disembodied voice on a bluetooth speaker is more of a distraction than having a conversation with a real passenger. The assertion appears to be grounded upon yet another assertion that a passenger can stop a conversation if/when a situation arises which demands the driver's attention.

Should we outlaw conversations in cars now, too?

I agree that there is a trade off between what is desirable versus acceptable risk.

The statutory instrument is now available
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/pdf/2014/en.si.2014.0178.pdf

3. In these Regulations—
“read a text message” includes access or open a text message (other than by
voice-activation) so that it can be read;
“send a text message” includes compose and type a text message, but does not
include anything done without touching the mobile phone;
“SMS” and “MMS” have the meanings assigned to them by Regulation 2(1) of
the European Communities (Electronic Communications Networks and
Services) (Framework) Regulations 2011 (S.I. No. 333 of 2011);
“text message” includes an SMS, an MMS message and an email.
4. A person shall not while driving a mechanically propelled vehicle in a
public place—
(a) send a text message, or
(b) read a text message,
from a mobile phone

Oryx wrote: »

I understand the need for this legislation, but all this talk of phone conversations being distracting makes me wonder when the government are going to ban the transport of children in cars. (Particularly squabbling preteen siblings). Now theres a distraction worse than any mobile phone conversation.

Sounds logical.
www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/public-needs-a-break-from-logical-leo-175841.html

Everybody knows I don’t have any people skills.

John Mason wrote: »

so we can still use GPS and handfree?

i use my GPS for work a lot

The existing legislation prohibits holding a mobile phone while driving, meaning holding the phone by hand or supporting or cradling it with another part of the body.

From 1st May, while driving, it will be an offence to send or read text messages (including SMS, MMS, email).

Use of a phone cradle should allow a motorist to be able to use a phone without holding it (bearing in mind the issue of text messages, as above).

However, it is possible that someone who is not concentrating on driving could be guilty of other offences such as careless or dangerous driving.