driving while using mobile phone

horsebox7

It appears to me that the number of people driving while using a mobile phone is still a major issue in Ireland. You only have to look around at the number of people using a mobile phone when you are driving around. I don't think I need to explain how dangerous this is and how little respect it shows to other people who use the roads and footpaths.
What I have a level of difficulty in understanding is why are a lot of these cases struke out of court even when an offender is caught by a gard and pleads guilty? It appears to me that when the fixed penalty fine is sent to the offenders address many offenders choose to wait til they are summonsed to court and then say they never received the fine in the post. This excuse seems to be acceptable for some reason? Although this may be the case I believe pepole caught should have to pay the fine and receive penalty points if they are found guilty anyway? Perhaps registered post could also be considered to avoid such ambiguity. The cost of registered post would be made up for by the increase in revenue from people who would otherwise avoid paying fines. I'm guessing replies may be divided on this depending on who uses and doesn't use a mobile phone while driving?

coylemj

What about pedestrians who walk out in front of cars and the Luas while on their phone or staring at the screen? When they get run down by a car they'll be straight off to an ambulance chaser for a big claim and deny they weren't paying attention to where they were going.

Agree that car and van drivers are to blame in a lot of situations but pedestrians also need to get off the x@*%ing phone and watch where they're going.

https://www.youtube.com/user/officialluas/

hullaballoo

There's no social stigma at the moment because the phenomenon is too new.

Wait until a few more teenagers get killed by someone on their phone and it'll start to change. Acceptable driving habits in Ireland are not dictated by enforcement agencies, they're dictated by social stigmas.

I blare the horn at people too caught up in texting or looking at some screen or another in their car to be concentrating on the road. I don't want to have to be a witness when you kill a pedestrian or cyclist because your bae was posting his/her dinner on instagram.

Midnight Sundance

My reply isn't offering any advice, it's just your post reminded me so much of a very near incident a while ago. I was stopped waiting to turn left onto main road when a mammy on her phone and little darling on his handheld game came from opposite direction to me. Never stopped or looked left or right. I could see a jeep flying up the main road and the boy walking towards the road.
With the luck of god his mam managed to finally realise where she was and pulled him back with I'd say a millionth of a second to spare. I thought I was about to witness an horrific accident.
I was so annoyed after thinking that the jeep would have killed the boy, had it on their conscience for the rest of their lives and stupid mammy n boy were not paying attention would have caused this .

Going Forward

hullaballoo wrote: »

I blare the horn at people too caught up in texting or looking at some screen or another in their car to be concentrating on the road. I don't want to have to be a witness when you kill a pedestrian or cyclist because your bae was posting his/her dinner on instagram.

Do you blare at people just talking on the phone too or is it just these idiots trying to text/use screens etc?

The latter is obviously extremely dangerous as eyes are off the road and I see it happening regularly enough, but I'm not completely convinced of the dangers of simply talking.

Rubberchikken

Regarding talking on phone whole driving. It's against the law so it's a fairly simple rule.
Also, seeing how stupidly incapable of walking/concentrating on anything when people are on a phone on the street, surely anyone can see that driving plus being on the phone is beyond people and seriously dangerous.

Bepolite

I can understand (despite my annoyance) why someone would answer or be on the phone while driving. What I simply can't get is people texting; should be an automatic ban but I agree with the above; it'll take something like a mother and two kids being wiped out in Dublin 4/6 by a banker in a merc before anyone does anything about it.

horsebox7

It really is terrible and what is worse is many of the penalty points and fines people receive are struck out of court in a lot of cases when people say they didn't receive the fixed penalty charge in the post. There has to be something that can be done here??

hullaballoo

Going Forward wrote: »

Do you blare at people just talking on the phone too or is it just these idiots trying to text/use screens etc?

The latter is obviously extremely dangerous as eyes are off the road and I see it happening regularly enough, but I'm not completely convinced of the dangers of simply talking.

It generally depends on whether their conversation is distracting them enough to cause problems to other road users. A lot of people are well able to concentrate on driving and having a conversation at the same time. On the other hand, there are people who are unable even to have a passenger in the car with them without being all over the place. (I was rear-ended by a girl who had her boyfriend in the passenger seat and she couldn't concentrate because he was all over her.)

For those who aren't concentrating and weaving about the road/failing to notice red/green lights etc., just a brief sounding of the horn usually gets their attention back on the road. For people looking down into their lap at a screen, they get a bit longer!