Should hands-free mobile phones be banned "at the wheel"?

[Fambo Number Mive]

Drivers could be banned from using hands-free mobile phones in England and Wales, a group of MPs has suggested.

Current laws give the "misleading impression" that hands-free options are safe, they warned.

While it has been illegal to use a handheld phone at the wheel since 2003, using a hands-free device creates "the same risks of collision", the Commons Transport Select Committee said.

The government said that, where legal, drivers must always use phones safely.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49320473

Personally I think that hands-free phones should be banned whilst driving as even though you have your hands on the wheel you aren't concentrating on the road ahead. Of course, conversations with passengers also distract as do car stereos but you can't legislate for that. 

We also need most traffic police who can spot people driving and texting or using their phone whilst driving. At the moment, you can get 6 penalty points and a £200 fine if you use a hand-held phone when driving. You'll also lose your licence if you passed your driving test in the last 2 years.

Personally, I don't think that is enough of a deterrant. I would like to see this increased to 9 penalty points, a sliding fine  depending on income of 30% of the monthly income, 100 hours unpaid work and having to attend a driving awareness course. Hands-free phone usage should be the same but with 6 penalty points instead of 9.

[madhair60]

nah and they should make normal phone use legal too. it's absurd. if anything i'm being EVEN MORE careful. Same with drinking.

[Dex Sawash]

I have hands so I don't care

[Blumf]

They can ban it, but they'll never bother enforcing it, so, what is point?

[Neville Chamberlain]

Offenders should be hung by the neck until dead.

[idunnosomename]

I spent an hour shouting "OK GOOGLE" at my phone on the motorway recently trying to get it play ram it down by Judas Priest. should they ban that?

[canadagoose]

No. How would taxi drivers manage? They have to use them at the wheel quite a lot.

[Cuellar]

Don't you basically control some cars e.g. a tesla via a massive ipad type thing on the dashboard?

I do think it's getting absurd though, the amount of connectivity you're encouraged to have in your car. "Answer emails while driving! Send texts! Get on tinder! Shag someone while driving!!"

I think it all should be banned and driving made to be such a miserable and boring experience that it's only ever done in extremis. No stereos in cars, no radios. Little needles all over car seats. Steering wheels that gradually heat up so if you're in the car for over an hour or so your hands catch fire. Replace putting your key in the ignition with blowing smoke into the face of an asthmatic child to start the car.

[Endicott]

Personally I think that hands-free phones should be banned whilst driving as even though you have your hands on the wheel you aren't concentrating on the road ahead. Of course, conversations with passengers also distract as do car stereos but you can't legislate for that. 

Yes you can. More accidents are caused by screaming children in cars or drunk passengers than are caused by hands free mobiles. Simply ban all passengers. Or force them to be sedated in a straight jacket, I don't care about the details that's not my problem. And rip out all the stereos while you're at it, it's the only thing that makes sense.

[pancreas]

rubbish

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I always read these threads in Jeremy Vine's voice

[shiftwork2]

Bigger distraction is when the Mekon gets in and flies around.  Are they going to ban him then?  Don't hold your breath mate

[Ambient Sheep]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49320473

A 2016 study by scientists at the University of Sussex found conversations via hands-free devices caused some drivers to visually imagine what was being discussed.

Yup, absolutely.  I learnt many many years ago never to discuss things that happened on other road journeys, future travel plans by road, or indeed anything that involves a lot of visualisation, otherwise I found myself drifting off the road having been driving effectively blind for the previous hundred yards or whatever.  It seems that doing such things steals the part of the brain needed to look at the road.

Just clicked through to that second article, and yup:

Scientists at the University of Sussex found conversations can cause the driver to visually imagine what they are talking about.

This uses a part of the brain normally used to watch the road, the University of Sussex study said.
::
::
The study showed that asking a simple question - such as, "where did you leave the blue file?"- during phone conversations could mean a driver concentrates on an area four times smaller than normal, because their brain is imagining the room where they left the file, instead of checking for hazards in front of them.

However, my valuable learning experiences weren't with phones, they were with passengers.  I've never had a hands-free phone in a car and have never used one in a moving car at all.

If you're going to ban hands-free mobile phones in cars then yes, you might as well ban passengers as well.

The article says that passengers are less of a distraction than a hands-free because they know when to stop talking, but I'm not entirely convinced.  I tend to stop talking to my passengers halfway through a sentence when coming up to roundabouts or any other junction, as I'm aware my multi-tasking ability isn't up to it, but unless they've been properly trained ;-) they often take that as a cue to jump in and start talking to me back (despite me muttering "Hang on..." or "One moment..." as I start the maneouvre), distracting me even worse than if I were still talking myself.

I've even had chatty passengers who, when I'm coming up to a particularly tricky junction (A30/A308 mentalness, I'm looking at you) take offence if I say "Shush a mo, please :-)" and insist on talking louder, demanding to know why I'm being so rude. *rolleyes*

And of course small children in the back can't really be trained anyway.  I've seen more than one parent weaving across the road before now whilst trying to placate a rear-seated child.

So yes, you can try to ban hands-free phones (which will doubtless piss off all those car manufacturers who spent small fortunes designing their cute handy Bluetooth integration thingies) but honestly if you do that you may as well ban everyone.

A 1970s-style PIF campaign targeting certain types of conversation ("When you talk in a car, and think about other places..." <screech of tyres><crunch> etc.) would be a better idea.

Oh, and also ban sat-navs with screens, as in recent years I've seen more people weaving about looking at those as I have hand-held mobile-users and distracted parents put together.  (I think sat-navs, while just occasionally invaluable, are a pretty toxic thing most of the time, but that's a subject for another thread, perhaps).

P.S. Presumably this means that those people, like Danger Man and sick as a pike, who have no "mind's eye", are much safer drivers than the rest of us?!

[Fambo Number Mive]

No. How would taxi drivers manage? They have to use them at the wheel quite a lot.

Exceptions could be made for taxi drivers or they could pull over and take a call from the dispatcher. Perhaps we need more "pulling in" areas on UK roads, I don't know.

[baptist]

Fucking nanny state shite for cunts. I have to use hands free in the mornings so that I can butter my toast whilst driving to the office.

[bgmnts]

Is it wrong to hope people who are on their phones behind the wheel end up crashing and killing themselves? Or maybe just paralysing themselves for life so they cant drive again?

[canadagoose]

Fucking nanny state shite for cunts. I have to use hands free in the mornings so that I can butter my toast whilst driving to the office.

Mr Bean, is that you?

[Fambo Number Mive]

I don't drive a car, but when travelling in the cars of other people, buses or on foot I do see a large number of terrible drivers (as well as a lot of cyclists who cycle on the pavement or don't stop at red lights). I do think that we'd make things safer and cut down on global warming if we did more to remove dangerous drivers from the road for longer. Driving is a privilege, not a right and if drink drivers, dangerous drivers and speeding drivers get far longer driving bans than everyone wins.

A public information film as Ambient Sheep suggests would be a good idea.

[steveh]

I have a friend in another country - where the traffic laws are upheld rather less than they are in the UK - who while a very technically competent driver does things while driving that make me want to scream. These have included driving with her 1yo nephew on her lap, regularly making both voice and video calls and texting with no hands-free or voice assistant and on multiple phones, posting photos to Facebook in slow moving traffic, executing stock market trades at the traffic lights, eating hot corn-on-the-cob and dividing hot water between Thermoses. I've been in two minor accidents with her, though amazingly they were both other people's fault.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Yup, absolutely.  I learnt many many years ago never to discuss things that happened on other road journeys, future travel plans by road, or indeed anything that involves a lot of visualisation, otherwise I found myself drifting off the road having been driving effectively blind for the previous hundred yards or whatever.  It seems that doing such things steals the part of the brain needed to look at the road.

Just clicked through to that second article, and yup:

However, my valuable learning experiences weren't with phones, they were with passengers.  I've never had a hands-free phone in a car and have never used one in a moving car at all.

If you're going to ban hands-free mobile phones in cars then yes, you might as well ban passengers as well.

The article says that passengers are less of a distraction than a hands-free because they know when to stop talking, but I'm not entirely convinced.  I tend to stop talking to my passengers halfway through a sentence when coming up to roundabouts or any other junction, as I'm aware my multi-tasking ability isn't up to it, but unless they've been properly trained ;-) they often take that as a cue to jump in and start talking to me back (despite me muttering "Hang on..." or "One moment..." as I start the maneouvre), distracting me even worse than if I were still talking myself.

I've even had chatty passengers who, when I'm coming up to a particularly tricky junction (A30/A308 mentalness, I'm looking at you) take offence if I say "Shush a mo, please :-)" and insist on talking louder, demanding to know why I'm being so rude. *rolleyes*

And of course small children in the back can't really be trained anyway.  I've seen more than one parent weaving across the road before now whilst trying to placate a rear-seated child.

So yes, you can try to ban hands-free phones (which will doubtless piss off all those car manufacturers who spent small fortunes designing their cute handy Bluetooth integration thingies) but honestly if you do that you may as well ban everyone.

A 1970s-style PIF campaign targeting certain types of conversation ("When you talk in a car, and think about other places..." <screech of tyres><crunch> etc.) would be a better idea.

Oh, and also ban sat-navs with screens, as in recent years I've seen more people weaving about looking at those as I have hand-held mobile-users and distracted parents put together.  (I think sat-navs, while just occasionally invaluable, are a pretty toxic thing most of the time, but that's a subject for another thread, perhaps).

P.S. Presumably this means that those people, like Danger Man and sick as a pike, who have no "mind's eye", are much safer drivers than the rest of us?!

My ex used to habitually curl up in the passenger seat like she was sat on the sofa and put her bag and legs into the centre console even though I'd told her repeatedly that it was important for me to have access to the gear stick and hand brake. Passengers can be fucking infuriating, especially if they are young kids or non drivers.

Not sure about the sat nav thing though. As council cuts have let road signs basically fall into disrepair and grow into trees and bushes, a decent sat nav is pretty much your only hope to navigate unfamiliar roads. Plus connected sat navs like Waze are a godsend for avoiding traffic jams and do help reduce congestion.

I do agree that some drivers seem to be effectively driving their sat nav and not looking at the road, but some people are just fucking dreadful drivers and they'd simply find something else just as stupid to do behind the wheel if you took that away from them.

[Dex Sawash]

I always read these threads in Jeremy Vine's voice

I wonder if

[Sebastian Cobb]

Some of you are quite progressive about the death penalty, and accept that deterrents don't work and it's the likelihood of being caught that motivates a crime, then go on to make completely mad calls to authority like this.

[solidified gruel merchant]

I'm an hgv driver and this would be impractical to say the least. There are all kinds of distractions whilst driving. And how would they police it? I talk to myself sometimes. Am I gonna get pulled over and have to show them my phone? "Sorry officer I'm just a bit odd."

[Cuellar]

I like the idea of a public information film, educating people as to why driving while not concentrating fully on the road would probably be most effective. Something along the lines of:

A MAN STEPS INTO A CAR.

A GANG OF THUGS BEAT HIS FAMILY UNCONSCIOUS AND BURN HIS HOUSE DOWN WITH THEM IN IT. TIGHT ZOOM ON MAN IN CAR WEEPING.

VO: "STOP DRIVING CUNTS". Fin

[Head Gardener]

problem solved

[Sherringford Hovis]

Why isn't augmented reality a thing in motor vehicles yet?

You'd think that having a big glass screen in front of you would make it easy to slap together something splicing Mariokart to TripAdvisor with the entrails of Pokemon Go.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Some of you are quite progressive about the death penalty, and accept that deterrents don't work and it's the likelihood of being caught that motivates a crime, then go on to make completely mad calls to authority like this.

The thing is, we've seen traffic police numbers slashed over the past decade and we've also seen driving standards get worse and worse over that time. A police presence really does deter people from committing traffic offences and it's the sort of thing I can get behind because, fuck me, people are too stupid to be hurtling about in nearly two tons of metal unsupervised.

It's amazing seeing how people's behaviour suddenly changes when they spy a plod car.

[Paul Calf]

[tag]Mail-pattern baldness[/tag]

[Sebastian Cobb]

The thing is, we've seen traffic police numbers slashed over the past decade and we've also seen driving standards get worse and worse over that time. A police presence really does deter people from committing traffic offences and it's the sort of thing I can get behind because, fuck me, people are too stupid to be hurtling about in nearly two tons of metal unsupervised.

It's amazing seeing how people's behaviour suddenly changes when they spy a plod car.

I'd put the amount of traffic police under 'likelihood of being caught'.

[Jasha]

If only people would work a bit harder then you could all afford a chauffeur and this wouldn't be a problem.