Read the following when you have a spare moment
Mobiles 'quadruple crash danger'
news.bbc.co.uk4672657.stmOpen ↗
Drivers are four times more likely to crash when using mobile phones, even if they use hands-free kits, experts say. They reached their estimates by looking at the phone bill records of 456 drivers needing hospital treatment after road crashes in Perth, Australia. In the UK it is illegal to use a hand-held mobile phone while driving.
**Recall this folks?**
Text-message driver who killed cyclist goes free
theage.com.au1068329487085.htmlOpen ↗
(Bypass Compulsory Web Registration with bugmenot.combugmenot.comOpen ↗ )
......A Geelong driver who killed a cyclist while sending a text message ran free from court yesterday after being given a two-year suspended prison term. Silvia Nicole Ciach, 24, wept after Judge Susan Cohen told the Geelong County Court that Ciach's jail sentence would be suspended for three years in the final act of what has been a remarkable case. In a sentence that made clear the serious consequences that could result from using a mobile telephone while driving, Judge Cohen said the use of mobile phones had become so prevalent that the risk of very serious potential consequences may have been overlooked by many people. "It is tragic that a man's life was lost in these circumstances but this case should serve as a stark warning to all that the risk is very real," Judge Cohen said.....
**And then this recent opinion article**
Holding the line on the new road rage
theage.com.au1117129894349.htmlOpen ↗
...There is something we can do. Look around at what other drivers are doing. Look around (preferably when stopped at lights) and then get angry, very angry, at the selfish fools who persist in talking on mobile phones on the road seven years after it was made illegal. Researchers have likened the risks for drivers using mobiles to driving with a blood-alcohol limit about the legal limit of .05. Yet still people yap away while steering with one hand, attention split between car and call..."
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So, this morning (13/7) when this vexing issue was being discussed on Jon Faine's program (774), wasn't it [censored] to hear that the VicRoads spokesperson was calling in live, via his car and mobile? Ignorant [censored].