Using mobile phone when driving

[40andnotsofabulous]

Hoping I can get some advice. I received letter this morning asking me to confirm if I was driver earlier this week on set road at set time as I had apparently been using my mobile phone.

It was definitely me driving and I was on phone at that time- checked records and I was on a works teams call. However, my phone set up is blue tooth to come through car, and as it was a phone call I can’t see why I would have been touching my phone at all (it sits in the central bit of car). I don’t play with phone in car, but even still I have double-checked messages etc and as I expected there is nothing sent. Am a bit confused- unless I literally moved the phone, but even the am not sure why I would.

The letter doesn’t give other details or say what the evidence is. I don’t want to dispute if it’s true, but I also don’t want to say I am guilty without checking it.

has anyone been in this situation? Do they send the photo or evidence after you confirm you are driver?

Posting in AIBU for traffic. Fully appreciate if using phone while driving then it is unreaonable behaviour and so makes sense to get the fine, but this is not what I am disputing! Thanks in advance.

Interesting ... if talking hands free is so dangerous, how does talking to a passenger rate I wonder?

I don't either. If its really important I'll answer and ask for a call back another day or time, but if its not important, I won't answer.

I think the difference with talking to a passenger in the car is that you can easily stop the conversation to concentrate on the road - that's not so easy when you're on the phone in a meeting or whatever and are trying to be fully present in two places at once.

So you have an employer that has little regard for family life. And not much for road safety.

You shouldn’t do Teams meetings whilst driving. How can you concentrate on either properly?

”Using any phone while driving is dangerous - driving is a highly complex task requiring a person’s full attention, as any error can be catastrophic. Drivers who talk on phones, both hands-free and hand-held, are four times more likely to be in a crash resulting in injuries, and researchers have found a correlation between phone use and culpability in crashes.”

“It has been argued that talking on a phone is no different to talking to a passenger. However, research has found drivers talking to passengers are less at risk than drivers on phones; it is theorised by researchers that conversations with passengers are modulated because both the driver and passengers can see what is happening on the road.”

https://www.brake.org.uk/get-involved/take-action/mybrake/knowledge-centre/mobile-phone-use

Yes theres something different about the way your brain works from when you're talking on a device, to when you're talking to a person next to you

Although I thought I also read that kids in the car are a major risk as well.

Loads of people I know do long personal calls while driving. One of my friends always phones when driving home from work. I’m like her personal podcast 😂

Don’t admit something you aren’t sure you did! (And even then, I wouldn’t admit anything without seeing the evidence they claim to have.)

Apparently the police are now accepting random people’s dash-cam footage and sending letters that rely on the recipient “confessing”.

The footage may have been sent about another driver’s behaviour and the police have scanned it for any other things they can try. Such footage isn’t reliable.

The police seem to be using it to issue fines to generate revenue and increase their prosecution stats.

Maybe they caught you pressing accept.

And that is the scary thing. So many are so used to handling their phone constantly that this driver here could have picked up her phone and not have realised.

AI cameras are being deployed on UK roads to automatically detect drivers using handheld mobile phones and failing to wear seatbelts. These systems, often using Acusensus technology, record high-quality footage from vantages like bridges, analyzing for offenses using AI before review by human operators for enforcement.

I always worry about the seat belt thing because I wear black all the time, a seat belt isnt visible on me

Someone I know was 'caught' doing this however when they sent her the evidence she was actually holding a croissant

Devon have recently installed overhead cameras to pick up drivers who are on their phones, no seat belts, unsecured children and pets etc. It's possibly something like that you've been caught on.

Not illegal to touch the phone provided you're not holding it.

Agreed

This accords with what DH was told when he did an online speed awareness course recently. There was a discussion part of the course and someone brought it up about phone use. DH said it was a really interesting discussion and if he hadn't been put off using a phone in the car before then he had now.

Interesting. My work has a policy that nobody may make phone calls when driving even with a bluetooth headset or whatever.

The difference between speaking to a passenger and someone on the phone is that the passenger can sense if the driver is approaching a tricky roundabout or something going on ahead and shuts up for a bit.

Amazing how no-one ever admits to holding their mobile phone while driving yet you see it all the time. (Not talking about OP here, just a general observation). I view holding a mobile while driving in the same league as if they were holding a bottle of vodka. Disgusting, dangerous behaviour.

This is what I thought. I'm pretty sure you're allowed to touch the phone but not to hold the phone. A strange distinction maybe but I'm pretty sure it does exist in the law.

I refused to do this ages ago. I advised my manager that I would not answer my work mobile while I was driving. I said I would pull over when it was safe to do so,but it would be best to text if urgent. And then wait for me. Shortly afterwards policy was changed, we were told that safety was paramount and management would have to accept they weren't that important. So hands free was not allowed either.

That seems like a really good idea, I hope more companies adopt the same policy.

Very similar to my company & it's a huge American corporation. You set your phone to state "I'm driving at the moment and will call you back later"

I consider myself a reasonably good driver, with 44 years driving experience including PSV licence. Up until recently I was doing 30'000 miles a year, last small claim was 30 years ago and no points since 1988.
Having said all that I know my driving is below standard with just 1 passenger chatting to me in the car and a phone has that disconnect that seems to be worse. If I was driving a coach and chatting I would guarantee the passengers would be having a less comfortable ride