How can car drivers be so stupid...

Rocker

I mean using their mobile phone while driving!  In Ireland it is against the law, thus accumulates penalty points, but you see it everywhere.  Even worse [aka more stupid] is the practice of holding the phone against the left ear with the right hand.  And at the same time negotiating a right turn or roundabout, simply defies logic and common sense.  I believe there are idiots who text while driving.  Is this a purely Irish problem of is it more widespread? 

boogieman

It's really common in England too sadly.

ChrisMusic

The idiots in charge didn't think to legislate when mobile phones came out, people were used to using then in their cars (where did that old century name CarPhoneWarehouse come from), so nobody said they couldn't so they just carried on with the new technology.

By the time the legislators woke up, it was ingrained.  A mountain to climb to get ordinary folk out of the habit.

I see parents, usually yummy mummys I'm afraid to say, with the young kids in the car, doing the most ridiculous manoeuvres and totally oblivious to everything around them and the hazzard they are creating.  Whatever happened to the sanctity of life, especially the duty to protect your own offspring?  Is that all protective box with crash protection, anti-lock brakes and air bags really that ton of killing machine I see?

Collectively we can get a man on the moon (no conspiracy theories please), but individually I am surprised many can muster the intelligence to tie their own shoe laces.

Oh yes, in answer, it does happen here too.

holnrew

ChrisMusic said:

The idiots in charge didn't think to legislate when mobile phones came out, people were used to using then in their cars (where did that old century name CarPhoneWarehouse come from), so nobody said they couldn't so they just carried on with the new technology.

By the time the legislators woke up, it was ingrained.  A mountain to climb to get ordinary folk out of the habit.

I see parents, usually yummy mummys I'm afraid to say, with the young kids in the car, doing the most ridiculous manoeuvres and totally oblivious to everything around them and the hazzard they are creating.  Whatever happened to the sanctity of life, especially the duty to protect your own offspring?  Is that all protective box with crash protection, anti-lock brakes and air bags really that ton of killing machine I see?

Collectively we can get a man on the moon (no conspiracy theories please), but individually I am surprised many can muster the intelligence to tie their own shoe laces.

Oh yes, in answer, it does happen here too.

The people who got men on the moon were fucking geniuses though.

bertie

ChrisMusic said:

I see parents, usually yummy mummys I'm afraid to say, with the young kids in the car, doing the most ridiculous manoeuvres and totally oblivious to everything around them and the hazzard they are creating.  

phew,  that saved me from instigating my pet rant....mostly mum, turned around 180O. talking to the kids in the back-seat....... also  what about lighting a fag............ what about smoking a fag ??   drinking........eating...........putting on make-up.......changing a CD......setting the sat-nav........reading a map.................... 

seen em all, again and again........well, out the corner of my eye, in peripheral vision of course

johnnyurq

We got the same douche bags up here and it is really annoying not to mention stupid.

I even saw a lorry driver talking on his mobile whilst going round a biggish roundabout, oh for a ground to ground missile system for these times.

School run mums yep they roam the land here too, having said that the school run dudes are not much better.

bertie

often see lorry drivers (probably about 2 or 3 on my 80 mile journey up the M4 of a morning)  reading papers, putting sugar in their tea,filing in forms.......... you know who they're going to be.........the ones that have just gone 100 yards with near side tyres on the hard shoulder........or meandering into the middle lane, and suddenly swerving back.....making the trailer snake.........

PolarityMan

holnrew;60993" said:

The people who got men on the moon were fucking geniuses though.

I actually genuinely misread that as "penises" for some reason.

Axe_meister

I've seen truck drivers watching porn????
Unfortunately every body has an opinion about other drivers. I've abused other drivers (under my breath) and no doubt I've been abused.
When I was younger I was probably a clunt on the road. Nowadays being an old git I get beeped at for being slow/sensible/polite/safe by the type of young cunt I was.
However London black cap drivers do think they own the bloody road. When it comes to indicating, they make merc/BMW drivers look like angles.
They through a U turn in front of you without warning, give you the finger and generally drive like dicks. And do they have a sign then say "if I drive like a wanke please call 0800.,," No

stickyfiddle

You guys should see drivers in the Middle East! Doing 100 on the highways, not 10 feet off the bumper of the car in front. Using other cars as a slalom. Cruise control switched on, so feet up on the dashboard... Overtaking on the hard shoulder is such a problem in places they've put speed bumps on it.

EricTheWeary

Yes, idiot...whoa corner...drivers just so bored with their commute that...traffic lights...they will do anything to spend that time...police car...









in more interesting ways. Radio 2 and a boiled sweet just not...piss, roadworks...good enough for them these days. Wouldn't catch me phoning whilst...bastard zebra...driving although texting whilst...idiot beamed driver.. stuck in traffic is...oh, here I am.

axisus

I drive over 60 miles a day so I see plenty of idiots, phone users and other stuff. Driving can be so annoying but I try to not get wound up these days. I've had idiots cut me up in the past and I soooo wanted to just crash my old banger into the back of their precious car! 

Myranda

Thing is, the enforcement of the no mobiles while driving laws has been shite.

Officially it's points on your license and a fine... 

At least one stand up comic in the UK has gotten off such a penalty claiming he was "recording a joke, using his phone as a dictaphone" thus apparently getting around the law (because talking on the phone to someone else is apparently far worse than talking to yourself on the phone).

And a member of the house of lord spend just 17 days in prison for killing a man while texting and driving

And then there's the fact that police forces are stretched so thin that they can't possibly spot enough people doing it to fine them to make the general public fear doing it. 

I've almost been killed by a driver texting because he was on my side of the road - but I can't stop him and charge him with Driving Without Due Care and Attention - not sure I saw a police car that day let alone near enough to flag down.

Perhaps the law makers should turn to the mobile operators - any phone moving at 40mph or more clearly isn't on foot so disable it at the Provider side till it slows down. Sure this will annoy passengers, but tough! It might even revive the art of conversation in cars

Axe_meister

But what about hands fee systems. It's no illegal to talk hands free. Otherwise it should be illegal to talk to your passenger.

Deijavoo

Employees of Carphone Warehouse are automatically dismissed from their job if they are fined for using a mobile phone against the legislation (I.e. not using a bluetooth headset). 

They really should change that name. 

EricTheWeary

most police forces give traffic violations low priority now so, as has been said, it is a largely unenforced law. The massive reduction in magistrates court work in the last few years is largely down to this. To some extent it is just a way to allow the police to stop someone they were watching anyway.
Mobile operators are introducing car apps where ( if you remember to turn it on of course) an automatic reply will be sent to any call or text saying you are driving and will reply when safe to do so.

johnnyurq

Axe_meister;61637" said:

But what about hands fee systems. It's no illegal to talk hands free. Otherwise it should be illegal to talk to your passenger.

I am not paying any fee for my hands, if they want me to pay I will have David Gilmour's hands.

Oops it is free not fee, as you were.

jd0272

Horrifies me what I see on the roads. I'm always checking the rear view on the motorway to see what the fckr behind is doing in case I have to stop for queues.

randomhandclaps

If hands free phones are legal, but quite rightly holding you phone is not -  Is it illegal for deaf people to talk (sign) when driving?

sinbaadi

Eating food.

Operating the sat-nav.

Lighting and smoking a cigarette.

Plenty of other things that blatantly take your attention away from the road.   The trouble is that, (and I think everybody is guilty of this to some extent, if not in the world of motoring, then in some other way) people believe it's not as bad when they do it themselves. 

The lines we draw for acceptable risk are usually completely arbitrary, and as someone said up there, too many years of legal phone-use whilst driving have meant that it's not quite as socially unacceptable as it should be.  Even those too young to have been able to make phone calls whilst driving would almost certainly have had parents that repeatedly did, and that's bound to rub off.

Of course you are guaranteed a positive and gracious reaction from a phone-using motorist you wag the finger at, they tend to be the nicest folk.

"Good heavens, I can't thank you enough, old boy!  The illegality of my actions and the potential dangers I might have posed my fellow motorists, not to mention my beloved family, leave me feeling quite, quite ashamed!  I shall endeavour to ensure that such a lapse never happens again!".

(I'm a motorcyclist and I've given up aggravating these idiots with any kind of gesture or comment.)

boogieman

Could be worse.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE3XsZaL-zo