I honestly thought I had seen everything, until.....

sunnysoutheast

In the early hours of yesterday morning I was on the M9 northbound and I passed an A6 whose driver was.......

.......holding an iPad as well as the steering wheel watching TV or a movie.

I would have taken a photo except the irony of crashing while trying to do so didn't escape me.

bazz26

Definite candidate for a Darwin award assuming he lives long enough.

ba_barabus

I mentioned it here yesterday but I've seen someone watching Netflix while at the wheel.

MagicMarker

New Game of Thrones probably.

Worth it.

Stheno

I've seen people on tablets a few times tbh

quadrifoglio verde

What's the legality of this as it's not a mobile phone.

Stupid though

Slicemeister

Ok to look at a HUD but not a screen. Soon it'll be illegal to drive the car you're driving.

Stheno

quadrifoglio verde wrote: »

What's the legality of this as it's not a mobile phone.

Stupid though

Haven't they changed to wording to "communications device" instead of mobile phone?

gctest50

,

http://www.google.com/patents/US8482535

The Backwards Man

Saw a fella in a car transporter watching Coronation Street on a 12v TV going down the M40 in England one evening.

RandomAccess

That could be the same guy I saw on a bicycle yesterday!
Must be trying to watch all past episodes of 24 before the next season starts tomorrow.

RandomAccess

quadrifoglio verde wrote: »

What's the legality of this as it's not a mobile phone.

Stupid though

Falls under driving without due care and attention / dangerous driving I think.

bazz26

There would be no need for water charges or austerity if the Government just introduced a stupidity tax instead.

T.Sparkie

A friend of mine saw the same on the M1 going northbound, she had her passenger record the driver. They brought it into a local garda station only to be told that if her hands were not holding the tablet it wasn't considered a distraction?
The logic behind this amazes me

MuppetCheck

It's like the lady I meet every morning with her cereal bowl.

coylemj

MuppetCheck wrote: »

It's like the lady I meet every morning with her cereal bowl.

while touching up her mascara and doing the Sudoko :rolleyes:

Before tablets, the motorway cops in the UK said that one of the worst cases they came across was a woman who liked doing numeric crosswords so they caught her barrelling down the motorway with a magazine of puzzles propped up against the steering wheel and to help her solve the puzzles she had a calculator strapped to her thigh!!!!

sunnysoutheast

Just to be clear the iPad/tablet didn't seem to be in any sort of holder, the driver was holding it while resting their hands on the wheel.

I've also seen the particularly annoying "headphones in and hold the phone horizontal by the mouth" style of talking used a few times behind the wheel, both in IE and UK.

visual

You can see why self drive cars are being developed to cater for the dumbest drivers who in other areas of their life are probably high achievers.

emeldc

Stheno wrote: »

I've seen people on tablets a few times tbh

Drug driving, tut, tut.

ironclaw

T.Sparkie wrote: »

A friend of mine saw the same on the M1 going northbound, she had her passenger record the driver. They brought it into a local garda station only to be told that if her hands were not holding the tablet it wasn't considered a distraction?
The logic behind this amazes me

If its in a holder then its perfectly legal. As long as no part of your body or clothing is supporting it.

Spook_ie

Does Irish Law not have an equivilent?
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1986/1078/regulation/109/made

109. (1) No person shall drive, or cause or permit to be driven, a motor vehicle on a road, if the driver is in such a position as to be able to see, whether directly or by reflection, a television receiving apparatus or other cinematographic apparatus used to display anything other than information—

(a) about the state of the vehicle or its equipment;

(b) about the location of the vehicle and the road on which it is located;

(c) to assist the driver to see the road adjacent to the vehicle; or

(d) to assist the driver to reach his destination.

(2) In this regulation “television receiving apparatus” means any cathode ray tube carried on a vehicle and on which there can be displayed an image derived from a television broadcast, a recording or a camera or computer.

The Dagda

Spook_ie wrote: »

Does Irish Law not have an equivilent?
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1986/1078/regulation/109/made

The cathode ray tube element of this statute makes it obsolete.

Voodoomelon

RandomAccess wrote: »

Must be trying to watch all past episodes of 24 before the next season starts tomorrow.

Haha, this is exactly what i'm doing, cramming season 8 in! Admittedly not in control of a vehicle.

HandsomeDan

As a few posters have pointed out he could have been cramming 24, or catching up on Game of Thrones.

djimi

I have seen people reading newspapers while driving along the N7 in the morning. I was stopped at Newlands Cross one morning beside a bloke who was having a shave. Nothing much surprises me any more.

KTRIC

I recently saw a guy on a moped texting and driving !! Yes a MOPED !!

djimi

KTRIC wrote: »

I recently saw a guy on a moped texting and driving !! Yes a MOPED !!

Tried that on a bicycle once a long time ago; never again :pac:

Caliden

Increase the speed limit, going faster = more attention needed.

K.Flyer

The best I saw was where the driver of a 4x4 at the lights in Ballsbridge had the laptop propped and angled in the passenger seat on top of the childs booster seat. She was furiously typing with your one hand while holding the phone with the other.
Lights go green and she takes off, phone gets held to ear by the shoulder, arm still outstretched to the laptop, free hand steering.
Well they do say women are great at the multitasking!:rolleyes:

emeldc

About seven years ago I was on 'home' kidney dialysis. It used to take the best part of an hour to negotiate the M50 at 8am in those days, so I used to dialyse in the car on my way to work. I used to hang the IV bag from the rear view mirror. I got some strange looks with that one alright

MidlandsM

The Backwards Man wrote: »

Saw a fella in a car transporter watching Coronation Street on a 12v TV going down the M40 in England one evening.

Impossible. Trucks are 24v.

gctest50

MidlandsM wrote: »

Impossible. Trucks are 24v.

http://bit.ly/1mUt6PE

ironclaw

MidlandsM wrote: »

Impossible. Trucks are 24v.

Not sure if you being sarcastic but its entirely possible with a voltage divider

ryan101

T.Sparkie wrote: »

A friend of mine saw the same on the M1 going northbound, she had her passenger record the driver. They brought it into a local garda station only to be told that if her hands were not holding the tablet it wasn't considered a distraction?
The logic behind this amazes me

That's guard speak for "go away with your feckin mobile phone video, it's my donunt break, and I can't think of a better excuse, but I know one thing, i couldn't be bothered with the hassles of your third party driving offence mobile phone video, and no one with experience of the Irish legal system would"

A guard can do anyone for the general offence of driving without due care and attention in such cases if they wish.

H3llR4iser

Countless; In the age before tablets and smartphones, I witnessed a fair few people driving with a newspaper carefully draped across the steering wheel.

People, usually couples, bickering furiously is another one; Truckers with portable TVs was a common sight even on the Italian motorways of the '90s.

Toll booth operators on Italian motorways deserve an honorable mention: although not driving, hence somewhat less dangerous a behaviour than most posted here, driving to a toll booth at night invariably meant finding all the blinds carefully closed, only the bluish light off a TV screen shining through; As you put your money on the little turntable, the sound of "lady pleasure" made the type of TV programme being watched rather obvious.

I kid you not, this used to happen all the effing time at any toll booth roughly between 11pm and 5-ish am; You would build a bit of a cold sweat approaching the barriers at the thought that you might not have exact change and, well, you might need to TOUCH change coming out of what was essentially a makeshift peepshow booth :eek::eek::eek:

Unsurprisingly, the motorway operator started removing the blinds from the booths in the early 2000s

creedp

H3llR4iser wrote: »

I kid you not, this used to happen all the effing time at any toll booth roughly between 11pm and 5-ish am; You would build a bit of a cold sweat approaching the barriers at the thought that you might not have exact change and, well, you might need to TOUCH change coming out of what was essentially a makeshift peepshow booth :eek::eek::eek:

Why? Were they holding the dirty TV with their hands?:D

suffering golfer

RandomAccess wrote: »

That could be the same guy I saw on a bicycle yesterday!
Must be trying to watch all past episodes of 24 before the next season starts tomorrow.

The new season actually started last week...

Anyway, it is idiotic to be on the phone/Ipad etc while driving. The number of people I see talking on phones while driving in Dublin is ridiculously high.

Spook_ie

The Dagda wrote: »

The cathode ray tube element of this statute makes it obsolete.

See how far down a road in the UK you get watching a screen in the front of the vehicle

MidlandsM

gctest50 wrote: »

http://bit.ly/1mUt6PE

ironclaw wrote: »

Not sure if you being sarcastic but its entirely possible with a voltage divider

Lol...yes. i was being sarcastic....:D

The Dagda

Spook_ie wrote: »

See how far down a road in the UK you get watching a screen in the front of the vehicle

I would guess it's actually quite a common thing in the UK, what with the rise of OEM screens and the low cost of aftermarket screens/tv's.

No doubt a cop would do something if he saw it, but with the proliferation of infotainment systems I would imagine it's quite a difficult thing to identify; whether a driver is watching a navigation system, or the latest Game of Thrones episode...

Black_Knight

bazz26 wrote: »

There would be no need for water charges or austerity if the Government just introduced a stupidity tax instead.

Surely that would only bite them in their own asses?

ofcork

Isnt it why cars like s class,7 series etc with tv built in would not work on the move.

MidlandsM

ofcork wrote: »

Isnt it why cars like s class,7 series etc with tv built in would not work on the move.

They can be tweeked to sort that out.

ofcork

Oh I know but obviously the manufacturers were thinking safety first.

darragh o meara

You can be done for having a video playing while driving and there was a lad convicted of it down this way a few years back, he was listening to a music dvd while driving but it was also on the screen.

I've been warned myself at a checkpoint with my own in car DVD headunit. Luckily the most that goes through mine is Disney movies which are being routed to the rear screens.

Btw some mercs have a dual vision screen, where the driver see the radio or satnav and the passenger can see the video feed, quite cool.

Cookie_Monster

They need one of these

Black_Knight

Woman driving along the N3 this morning, doing her makeup. :eek:

keithclancy

Yep .. just Ireland of course ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2824249/Truck-driver-watched-Battlestar-Galactica-on-laptop-while-driving.html

Saw a lad on the way home there one day watching New Kids on a large iPad mounted in the middle of the Dash.

I could see the subtitles from where I was sitting

seagull

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

They need one of these

I thought that was for putting your breakfast tray on.

Delirium

sunnysoutheast wrote: »

In the early hours of yesterday morning I was on the M9 northbound and I passed an A6 whose driver was.......

.......holding an iPad as well as the steering wheel watching TV or a movie.

I would have taken a photo except the irony of crashing while trying to do so didn't escape me.

:pac:

Zubeneschamali

seagull wrote: »

I thought that was for putting your breakfast tray on.

That's where I put my pint.