Lying git

[undyingking]

What's the maximum sentence for phoning while driving, anyone? I think this case will call for 'making an example', if ever one did.

"After being shown the picture, the paper said he told the reporter he could not talk to them because he wrote a column for another paper."

Edited to add the link, thanks Chris!

Comments

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Disqualification and a £1000 fine.

[chrisvenus]

Given you've not said what this is about was this the story I heard of clarkson having somebody photograph him talking on his mobile while driving on the M40 and sent it to the police or something? If so how admissable is evidence like that? Just wondering if there is actually sufficient proof beyond "some bloke said so".

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Aha, oops, I forgot to include the link. It is a wee bit crpytic without.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how admissible it will be in court -- but if it's clear that it is a genuine photo of that happening, it should get him the sack from Top Gear I guess.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

Doesn't seem very likely to me. Clarkson's an ass, but that's part of his 'appeal' in some quarters.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Also the beeb didn't sack Craig Charles for smoking crack and masturbating in the (presumably paid for by the BBC) car back to his home after doing his show.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Mm, but Craig Charles didn't present a motoring show -- that might make a difference.

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

Clarkson owns Top Gear. He is unlikely to sack himself.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Does he? Gah! Well, the BBC as his main customer should stil be able to put some pressure on him if they want to.

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

You'd think so but in a previous show he clearly torched a caravan on a campsite where the fire could easily spread just because he was bored with caravanning. If they let him get away with reckless arson I imagine that talking on a mobile phone seems rather tame. I expect he'll get a talking to since he doesn't have plausible deniability this time.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

I wondered whether it could definitely be proven to be taken when they said. Or has he (or his car) changed noticeably in the last couple of years?

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

The shot would have a time and date attached to it by the phone wouldn't it? If Clarkson confirms that he was at that location at that time in that car (and if he won't say, there are cameras that will) then it becomes improbable that it's a photo taken in an inexplicably blurred carpark and subsequently hacked.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

The sad irony is that hands-free mobiles are actually more dangerous than hand-held ones. I know it's counter intuitive, but that's what the studies show.

It's something to do with the way attention is focused as it came up in my psychology course.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

I'd need to see the studies before I really truly believed that they're more dangerous than handhelds, but they're certainly very dangerous - the closest I've ever come to death (since the Brixton bomb anyway) was on the Glasgow-Edinburgh motorway being driven by a work colleague who was carrying out complex and heated business negotiations on his hands-free mobile.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

This article - http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/03/1033538725358.html - has one theory (driver risk perception is inaccurate), but I've seen other theories that I can't instantly recall.

I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that all phone usage while driving is dangerous and that the law should not exclude hands free sets.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

all phone usage while driving is dangerous

Mm, I know it would be for me. Even an intense conversation with a passenger is pretty distracting really.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit surprised to learn that hands-free are more dangerous (based on my own psychology degree - admittedly a few years out of date now - I would have predicted equally dangerous). But the reason hand-held is illegal and hands-free not is purely that the govt doesn't like to make laws it can't enforce. The phone records can catch people, but only after a policeman has caught them first, which is all-but-impossible for hands-free.

What we need is the mobile phone equivalent of a speed-gun. Point it at a car and it tells you if there is an active mobile phone in it.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

It might prove to be equal in the long run. Different studies will inevitably give varying results. The problem seems to be that drivers with hands-free sets assume they are safe and thus concentrate less on their driving and more on the phone call. (a bit like the increases in pedestrian death rates that come with strict seat belt laws)

Enforcement is a toughie. In theory, I suspect one could do it using phone company software to spot people moving rapidly between phone cells.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

It would have to also take a photo to show that the driver was either (a) visibly on the phone, or (b) the only person in the car at the time, otherwise it would pick up passenger phone use. But we have that technology already, more or less, in speed cameras.

And it would have to be able to disciminate between calls to which the driver is responding, and those to which the phone itself is responding (voicemail etc). Which might well be possible, I don't know much about how such things work.