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Old 10-07-2010, 05:08 AM   #40 (permalink)
Arragonis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clev View Post
And yet you also specifically have a mobile ban that is completely separate. In California, if you're so much as picking up a phone to move it from the seat to the cupholder, it's a ticket. THAT'S my problem with the mobile ban. The problem is covered under existing reckless driving laws in the U.S. as well, but that wasn't good enough for the whiner (whinger?) crowd, so they made an additional law so that so much as glancing at a phone to see who is calling gets you a ticket.
It was made a specific ban here was for 2 reasons.

Firstly the message wasn't getting through, people would trawl statistics etc. and believe they had the driving skills of Tony Pond and that the ban shouldn't apply to them.

Secondly, and more tellingly, it allowed the Police to deal with it as a fixed penalty - basically they issue a ticket there and then which you can challenge later rather than having to take people through the courts as they did with Driving Without Due Care and Attention.

One interesting piece of recent research found that the old excuse of a passenger having a conversation with the driver being just as bad was flawed. Your passenger is in the car with you and experiences the same challenges - when you go quiet so do they, but the person on the other end of the phone doesn't.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bestclimb View Post
It is because you government does not exist to serve society, society exists to serve government now.
It has been this way since WW2, its just nobody noticed until more recently.
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