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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To gesture like a lunatic at people using mobile phones while driving?

40 replies

givemushypeasachance · 15/05/2011 21:14

I'm not even that bothered about it being illegal - just that it's bloody dangerous and they could quite easily injure or kill someone while they are jabbering away on that obviously life-or-death important conversation. Every day on the way to work [disclaimer - by bike, but I do drive, and no I've never used a phone while cycling or driving even before it was illegal] I spot at least one of the dangerous eejits, and if I'm stopped at a junction and they are passing I've taken to waving at them and trying to gesture in a phone-miming/head shaking way that what they're doing is not a great idea.

Several times I've been told to basically f-off, and one woman in a rammed supermarket car park started having a lengthy debate with me about how it's not illegal because it's not a public road. Well maybe so - but there were lots of pedestians wandering in the middle of the aisles, small children, cars darting in and out of spaces - maybe she'd like to actually focus on her driving? She was steering around the ends of the aisles one handed, chatting away, and I was literally wincing as she did it. Why isn't mobile phone driving socially unacceptable in the same way that drink driving is now? Why do some people think it's a perfectly normal thing to do in broad daylight as they drive around busy city streets?

OP posts:
thisisyesterday · 15/05/2011 21:16

actually a supermarket carpark IS regarded as a public highway if the public have access in and out. which they do.

and yanbu! it drives me potty

beckibicker · 15/05/2011 21:21

i saw a tesco lorry driver driving an artic (sp) around a roundabout one handed while nattering away on his phone

i contacted tesco but they didnt really care tbh

SmethwickBelle · 15/05/2011 21:25

YANBU, I do it too.

Vicky2011 · 15/05/2011 21:27

YANBU. At all.

Tortington · 15/05/2011 21:28

you should be looking a the road with two hands on your handlebars/steering wheel

missslc · 15/05/2011 21:30

No YANBU

Selfish prats- i saw a girl putting her blusher on as she drove- looking in the mirror- I gesticulated at her- she gave me the bird.

It was worth it- we need to gesticulate more at people who put other's lives at risk- they are numpties.

tethersend · 15/05/2011 21:41

YANBU

My dad and stepmum were almost killed earlier this year when they were hit head on by a driver on her phone who lost control of the car. She died.

mablemurple · 15/05/2011 21:41

maybe she'd like to actually focus on her driving?
However much it annoys you, it is not your job to self-righteously "correct" the behaviour of other drivers, and while you are doing your vigilante bit looking out for the transgressions of others, you are not focussing on your own driving!

Loonytoonie · 15/05/2011 21:42

A friend of mine, some years ago was driving home after a job interview and she phoned her Mum to tell her how it went. Phone went dead mid way through conversation. That was about 18 months ago. My friend is now being fed fluids through a tube in a belly and will never, ever leave a hospital environment. She is in a permanent vegetative state. She took out another 2 cars, one an elderly male passenger who died instantly.

I see drivers on mobiles every day, every journey. It sickens me to the core.

YANBU at all. Not at all Sad

mowbraygirl · 15/05/2011 21:43

YANBU It drives me up the wall to see people with the mobile clamped to their ear and 'trying' to drive with one hand. The other day DH and I were driving to the supermarket and this female was driving along with cigarette in one hand and mobile in other I was so incensed as to how dangerous this was. So as quick as a flash I got my 'Freedom Pass' out of my handbag and flashed it at her and gesticulated to her mobile as she was next to us at the traffic lights to see her reaction was great. I know she said 'shit' (I am good lip reader) and dropped the mobile I presume onto the passenger seat and she was off like a shot as soon as the lights changed. . DH wanted to know what I was doing and laughed when i told him. I don't know who she thought I was but it did the trick.

CoteDAzur · 15/05/2011 21:47

YABU and a little crazy. Why on earth would you go ninja on a woman with a cell phone in a car park?

LordOfTheFlies · 15/05/2011 21:51

YANBU but be prepared for the flack as you've experienced.When I'm at a zebra crossing and some tit grives straight across on their phones when I'm waiting to cross (I don't just walk onto the crossing without waiting,I live in the part of Essex where ZCs are just pretty lines on the road).
I sometimes swing my bag out to indicate I'm there- gives em a fright haha.
You'll be told UR being unreasonable by the pregnant smoking-while-child-not-in-car-seat-or-seat-belt MNers who tell you to MYOFBWink

PiazzaDellaRotonda · 15/05/2011 21:52

Oh I love stickybeaks like the OP! Of course you're going to get the finger - I would regard that as my duty (were I to use my phone whilst driving, which I do not) to express my disbelief and distaste at you having appointed yourself mobile phone monitor and guardian of the roads. All the while you're nosepoking into cars to see what everyone else is doing you're probably every bit as much a hazard as someone on the phone.

TattyDevine · 15/05/2011 21:54

YABU on the basis that you are further distrating the drivers who are already distracted by their phones.

They are wrong, not you, however, you should just keep out of it. Just concentrate on your own driving and let other people be idiots if they want. I know in theory they might hurt someone but you could argue they are even more likely to if their eye is caught by the madwoman animated person.

MirandaGoshawk · 15/05/2011 21:59

Piazza - the OP isn't driving. Its' when she's on her bike & stopped at junctions.

Like other things concerned with driving, such as speeding, some people choose when to obey the law, and when a particular law doesn't suit them they ignore it.

I am a gesticulator too. (But not while I'm driving!)

SillyOldHector · 15/05/2011 22:01

Gawd, what a busybody you are, OP.

LordOfTheFlies · 15/05/2011 22:15

I don't know why the negitive responses-can only assume its from people who do use the phones while they drive and get the hump at being picked up.
Surely they can see its an accident waiting to happen.
Slightly different but similar vein: lady gets on bus(I'm sat at the back,bus fairly empty), shows Oystercard,parks baby in buggy and toddler in buggy space.So far so good. Hasn't taken her phone off her ear the whole time.Buggy has 6 bags of shopping that I can see.She lets go and buggy falls, cue crying babySad luckily not hurt.Man goes to help and says:

"Well if you weren't so busy on your f*ing phone"
Ripple of approval/aghast shock in equal measure.

Okay different scenario but if someone does that with a buggy/phone, what would they be like with a car/phone.

squeakytoy · 15/05/2011 22:18

Piazza - the OP isn't driving. Its' when she's on her bike & stopped at junctions

presumably the car is also stopped at said junction.. so hardly a danger to others if the driver is stationary

LegoStuckinMyhoover · 15/05/2011 22:30

I see loads of people on their phones whilst driving-it makes me cross too. It makes the law a bit of a joke when so many people just carry on doing it.

Does anyone know of anyone actually fined for doing it?

imo, it makes no difference if they are in a traffic jam or not. if the engine is running then they are in control of a potential killer. if you want to make a call, just park up, handbrake up, switch off engine and dial! what is so difficult about that?! We all managed before the invention of mobile phones. anyone remember driving round trying to find a phone box?!!

FunnysInTheGarden · 15/05/2011 22:34

OP you are a nosy parker and should be concentrating on your own road safety and not berating other drivers. It's very unseemly you know and could get you KILLED (in a road rage incident)

fit2drop · 15/05/2011 22:40

YANBU,
My friend nearly lost her life as her boss used a phone whilst driving..crashed into another car. killed the driver and my friend spent months in hospital and has been left severely disabled. Her children lost the happy go lucky mummy they had and her husband had to leave his job to care for her.
It has been a long long recovery for her , this happened ove 10 years ago and my friends case was I believe one that was used as an example to enforce the law that using mobiles whilst driving illegal.She has been a massive campaigner for banning using mobiles whilst driving.

It is actually illegal to use a phone if your engine is turned on and you are behind the wheel, you dont have to be moving , So pulling in to answer the phone is only ok IF you turn the engine off.

Original poster
givemushypeasachance · 15/05/2011 23:34

Thank you to those posters who were pointing out that in my OP I did specifically say that I said I was on a bike, stopped at a junction, and that I only wave like a loon when stationary! If I tried doing it while cycling along I would probably fall off and hurt myself while the phone-using driver passes by and laughs.

It seems that no-one is particularly arguing that drivers should be allowed to use their phones at the wheel - just some people think that I shouldn't stickybeak/be nosy/judge other people's driving. Would the people with this opinion sit back and watch as someone who had just downed several pints/G&T's went and got behind the wheel? Or as someone sticks several DVDs under their coats walks out of a shop? Alerting the police or security or whoever is obviously the first choice but if there's no-one around to feel their collar then surely a bit of social pressure in the form of public disaproval might go some way to building up a culture of "we're not going to just accept you doing that"?

I'm very sorry to those of you with personal experience of the harm that this sort of needless carelessness can bring. No phone call is that urgent that you can't wait till you reach a safe place to stop.

OP posts:
Original poster
givemushypeasachance · 15/05/2011 23:39

CoteDAzur - I assure you I wasn't being particular "ninja" on the woman in the car park. Grin She drove past me on her phone, having one-handedly swung around the end of the aisle, and since her window was down I thought I would point out to her that it was illegal to use your phone while driving - which started her debate on the legal points of public road/car park.

How many times have you experienced or seen a near-miss in a car park when people blindly walk in front of cars with their trolleys and kids run in and out of the place, people muck up their parking or just don't look where they're going? In a car park would be the last place I'd choose for a driver to be distracted by a phone. You don't have to be going motorway speeds to damage someone with a several tonne vehicle.

OP posts:
OldLadyKnowsNothing · 15/05/2011 23:40

LegoStuckinMyhoover "Does anyone know of anyone actually fined for doing it?"

Yes. They're having a crack-down on this in my area, and DS1 got busted for it a couple of weeks ago.

Three points and £60 fine, I'm delighted to say.

missslc · 17/05/2011 18:47

sillyoldhector

Thank goodness some people are busybodies and make a stand against people who put other's lives at risk. I hope I am never driving near you on the road- if you are one of the offenders, and I also hope you and anyone else gets fined repeatedly, when caught.

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