A bit hypocritical???

Question

After the recent change in law about the use of mobile phone when driving what are your views on the police using their personal radio`s when they are behind the wheel of a car?? I know some may say that they have done a driving course, but they are not in full control of the vehicle and cannot be concentrating on the road anymore than someone using a mobile.

Answer 1

You can't see the wood for the trees, IMHO. I don't think there's anything intrinsically dangerous about using a phone while driving - it's just that so many people have have done such stupid things that they've had to pass a law about it, and we've all had to suffer the inconvenience.

Consider this - suppose everyone had always driven at a safe speed for the conditions, ever since the car was invented. We wouldn't have speed limits, would we?

That's the trouble - you HAVE to legislate for the idiots. The rest of us have to go along with it, I'm afraid.

Answer 2

Yes.
But the law is also so very very short sighted. It is legal to use a hands free system, like a speech dialled number from a bluetooth earpiece. The problem is that the law hasn't taken into account the prevalence and rapidly improving quality of video phones. At some point in the near future someone (stupid) could be making a video conference call during driving, so they will be totally distracted from driving. The only law against this is driving without due care and attention, and that same law applies to the audio use of a mobile phone. There didn't need to be a new law. The Old Bill just didn't enforce the old one.The fines and the points are similar too. The whole thing has just been a headline grabbing stunt. Yes, the people who are plainly distracted from driving should be nicked, but the Old Bill need a kick up the jacksey for not enforcing the existing law. That is with whom the issue really lied.

Answer 3

I would have thought, with all those endless repeats of "Police, camera, action," that people would be aware of the fact that in many high-speed pursuits, the police not only remain in constant radio link, they chat to each other in the front seats.

The police are quite good at driving powerful cars fast in straight lines, but when it comes to "extreme driving" they fall short of perfection by a long chalk.

They are not a "super-breed" of driver by any means.

What I find so amusing, is the idea that RESEARCH HAS SHOWN that even hand's free phones are a distraction.

I never get distracted for a single second; anymore than I would be distracted by holding a conversation with a passenger or by listening to a serious discussion on Radio 4.

I haven't noticed planes falling out of the sky, or ships careering up the main street, simply because the pilot or captain were talking to ground-control or the harbour-master.

Did Michael Schumacher crash in a ball of flame when he talked to the team manager for the whole of the last lap of the race where he won the world-championship, when he was doing 200mph?

Do rally-drivers smash into trees because the navigator was reading the notes through a microphone and head-set?

There is a wonderful story about the racing-driver Fangio, who was driving a Ferrari at high-speed in Tuscany. As he went over the brow of a hill, a horse and cart plodded onto the road when the farmer failed to look. Fangio hurled the car sideways and slewed to a halt a few feet away from the horse and cart, and it was only afterwards, that the journalist travelling with him realised that Fangio had never stopped talking about his life and career.

WHAT RESEARCH DOESN'T SHOW is that most people who drive cars, and fill them with noisy children, should not really be driving at all.

There are drivers and there are motorists, and 99% of them are motorists.

Answer 4

I don't think the use of mobile phones while driving is the problem. It is actually the conversation and state of mind while having it,(the conversation) that makes for the driving distraction. Being on the phone is no different from having a passenger. You sometimes look to them as you are talking, get angered and or distracted, or lose all focus on your surroundings. So whether it be a police officer or you or I, attitudes should be checked at the door, prior to getting into your car!

Answer 5

Yet another example of do like I say and not like I do. This is the same police force that can break the speed limit on a public road and use the excuse that they where testing the cars capabilities, shot and innocent Brazilian on a public tube train and say it was a breakdown in intelligence, shoot a man coming out from a pub with a table leg in a bag and say they thought there lives where in danger. This list goes on and on.

Answer 6

It is totally hypocritical for plod to claim they are more highly trained & therefore can handle driving & talking on their radios at the same time. Just look at the number of Police car crashes. What I find funny are those 'Police Stop' shows where you see plod chasing a car, reciting all the misdemeanours of the bandit car, while doing exactly the same themselves.
I once had an unmarked Police car crash into me When I had a green light & they went through on red. No siren, no blue lights, nothing. They're human, just like the rest of us.

Answer 7

Come off it. Have you ever seen a police officer driving erratically because they are chatting on a hand held phone at an inappropriate time? or using front fog lights in full daylight visibility etc? You know how you drive when one is following you? That is known as trying to drive properly.......... No, I am not a police officer.

Answer 8

It's a necessary evil of the job. In most cases their use of the radio is extremely limited compared to some dimwit with a cell phone nattering on about meaningless drivel for hours on end whilst juggling a Big Mac, fries, Coke and putting on mascara.

Answer 9

Police officers are TRAINED to use their radios whilst driving. They are put thru advanced advanced driving courses before they graduate as officers therefore they are expontentially better drivers than you and I, the hardest thing I had to do to get my license was reverse round a corner. These guys can do that at 300mph with one testicle strapped behind their back!

Answer 10

Use of two-way radio is excluded from the legislation, presumably because you only need to press one button and talk briefly, rather than pick out numerous small keys ands then yap on for ages about nothing very much.