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A JUDGE IN Cork has criticised what he called an “epidemic” of mobile phone use by drivers in Ireland.
The Irish Examiner reports Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin as saying yesterday that he could not think of a more dangerous occupation than using a mobile phone while driving. At the Cork Circuit Appeals Court, he said that the action had reached “epidemic” proportions and that the country was “blighted” with the practice, praising the Gardaí for increasingly bringing such cases before the court.
In February, Gardaí launched Operation Focus which aimed to focus road users’ attention on garda enforcement of measures against the illegal use of a mobile phone driving which can result in fines of up to €2,500 and four penalty points on your licence. Last year, the Road Safety Authority said that using your mobile phone while driving quadrupled the risk of being in a crash.
Today we want to know: do you use your mobile phone while driving?
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If you can afford a car and a phone I am sure you can afford a hands free device………
Good lad Sean, the same way people who can afford to buy spuds should be able to afford a T-bone steak to accompany them.
No Dermot it’s more that someone who can afford to buy a t bone can then afford a few spuds on the side, the car and the phone being the much more expensive commodities!!
Um, iv a house with a now over inflated mortgage, I also have a 2000 banger which although long paid for seems to be needing a lot of maintenance these days! I most certainly cannot afford to install a hands free!!!!!!
So, the logic here is that if you can’t afford the hands-free kit, your use of a mobile while driving should be overlooked? It’s as simple as this: DO NOT TEXT OR USE YOUR MOBILE WHILE DRIVING. Any call or text can wait until you have pulled in or reached your destination. Jesus!! What did we do before mobiles?
@tony stanley. you can buy a bluetooth headset for a tenner nowadays!!!!
Exactly, a bluetooth headset for a tenner and leave the phone in your pocket or a dashboard mount for another or else do what I do and feck it in the boot while you’re driving, can’t hear it then!
Does your phone not have a speakerphone?
A guy I knew had glued some Velcro to the back of his phone and the other bit of it on the driver door armrest. If he needed to take a call speakerphone was perfectly adequate. And it’s a cheap alternative to headsets and hands free kits.
If its a text it can wait.
I walk around this great City of Dublin every day and I have seen a lot of people driving still using their mobile phones The Van and lorry drivers are the worst.
In my experience the Gardai are by far the worst for doing it! Maybe they’re allowed to.. I don’t know.
@mart my dad saw a gard doing it before and gave out to the gard. The gard gave my dad a right bollocking saying he was authorised to use it in the course of duty…because apparantly gards are safe enough drivers that hands free is beneath them…and sticking to the speed limit for that matter! have been tailgated far too many times by gards where iv been doing the limit! oh well makes me slow down more, if they crash into the back of me at a lower speed less damage to me and my car (and lets face it theyd find a way of making me foot the bill!)
Abi, just to let you know, the spelling is ‘guard’
I saw a TD doing it last summer coming out of a T-Junction on to the N-11.
@colin It’s a pity that you didn’t have a passenger with a camera phone that could have leaked it to the press!!
I am shockingly bad for talking and texting, checking email, Facebook, twitter, the journal and anything else I can while driving!!
So stop.
If I did, how would I get to reply to your comme……..bang!
^Mr
That’s because couldn’t persuade you to do it for me Emzy;-)
I was busy……..doing ‘other’ stuff……in fairness,you were pretty pre-occupied…..
Seriously though,I’ve seen people driving,with kids in the back and not belted in,yacking away on the phone. How retarded can people be?
i lost my licence for talking on the phone, amongst other things
Phoning while driving is one thing but I have on numerous occasions seen people text while on the move.
That is downright dangerous.
Correct me if I am wong.
But I recently read that the law actually states that using a mobile in the car ( even when pulled over to the hard shoulder ) is illegal.
Uhmmm. Just a thought.
Have you ever tried to open a pistachio while driving or peeling a banana?
That’s not illegal.
Have you ever been stopped by the Gardai while you were shaving and them accusing you of using a mobile phone while driving…as the Gardai put it motor vehicle with a strong bog accent.
Texting while driving is more dangerous than drink driving so the penalty should fit the crime. Ban those caught tx driving.
It is ridiculous the amount of people I pass every single day using a mobile phone while driving and it really pisses me off that these people don’t get the message or get caught.its blatant disregard for the law and people’s safety.i specifically now look to see how many people I pass in my car that are on a mobile and usually I would see at least 3 in 10 cars. And most people don’t give a toss until their caught..
I nearly got run down the other day by a banker who was texting, I was on my bike so I smashed in his window of his car with my bike lock, it’s not right i know but i had the rage in me and it thought him a lesson. He didn’t even see my first thing he knew was the glass flying at his face.
I used to a few years back until one day my phone slipped and fell under the pedals, nothing happened but It got me thinking what could have happened if it fell under the brake pedal….and it wasn’t one of these new fangled, waver thin smartphones either, it was..figuratively speaking…a brick :P
And lets face it, there’s nothing more annoying than driving behind someone doing 15mph as they chat away and then up their speed when the conversation is over.
You’d be OK Dermot ,, Your brake pedal dose not go to the floor ,,,, If it dose ??? it’s not your phone that you should be worried !!!!
ABOUT !!!
:P
Using a mobile while driving doesn’t seem to be illegal at all.
In my own opinion, talking on the phone while driving is just madness.
You loose so much concentration when doing it it’s not even funny.
The amount of people I’ve seen talking when coming onto roundabout’s is weird too, maybe it’s cos I’m stopped and can watch the other drivers for a sec.
It doesn’t even need ot be illegal, it’s fkn common sense 0.o
Why debate this? As I often remind herself, It’s a car not a chatroom. I honestly seen a girl eating a bowl of cereal the other day on the N7, cereal! If you’re reading this, I hate you!
Did you happen to see what type of serial it was? It’d be interesting to know is it is more dangerous eating one particular type of cereal, say Shredded Wheat, as opposed to Rice Crispies? A case of ‘snap crackle and bang?’
I saw a woman putting on make up last week…in Cork.
I think it’s just as bad eating a big mac meal and six piece (with BBQ sauce) whilst commenting on the Journal.ie…..and driving.
Guys, as an expat in Italy, I can assure you the level of the problem in Ireland is minuscule by comparison to here. There’s nothing more the Italians love more than a good rant on the phone while driving. Last week,I witnessed a girl driving on the motorway weaving in and out of the traffic lanes, undertaking, overtaking-the works, all while being on her phone. She passed me twice due to me beating her out of the toll bridge pit lane and I noticed she was on facebook on her Iphone as she passed me both times. Bearing in mind that the motorways here are 130kmph. Absolute joke. I’m only mentioning it to give some perspective to the Irish situation which, from here, looks well under control. Let’s not jump to extremes in Ireland as we always do! There will always be offenders who do it but, generally speaking, there is widespread compliance among motorists.
Bellisimo!
I’m not living in Italy, if someone gets hit by a careless driver on the phone it doesn’t matter where it is.
Typical Irish attitude.
‘Ah, sure.. we’re not the worst.’
I always think to what pilots are trained to do with the radio and try to apply that. When it comes to flying it’s “Aviate, navigate, communicate”. This means “fly the plane, know where you’re going, talk to people.” It’s more than just having a hands free kit, it means having a “f*ck you, I’m driving” attitude to whatever you’re jabbering on about on the phone.
I don’t think we can compare pilot interaction with ATC in the same manner as a full blown conversation on a mobile phone while driving.
It’s clearly dangerous to text and drive. The Road Safety Authority says using your cell phone increases the risks of being in a crash but don’t point to any data backing that up. Have crashes quadrupled?
If we are to inform people of these dangers then facts should be published.
Has anyone ever tried eating a breakfast roll and driving at the same time? Compared to using a phone this is much harder and more dangerous, is it illegal? Hmmmm!
Yup. It is,
Driving without due care is how that could be interpreted – i.e. careless driving.
Jay walking pedestrians, cyclists breaking lights, cars breaking red lights 2 seconds after going red, driving and talking/texting on your phone – as long as there is no enforcement (socially or by the Gardai) these will remain acceptable behaviours.
Just dn’t do it! As can be seen from some comments above, it distracts both the driver doing it and other people getting pissed off by somebody doing it.
Gardai are NOT exempt from consequences of using mobiles if they break other laws while doing so (e.g. drive dangerously, cause accidents, kill people, damage property, etc . . .)
I pull over for calls. It’s texting that gets me. If I could talk to text it would be handy.
Not whiter then white here but you realise texting is probably way more distracting then talking!
Texting doesn’t “get you”. You just don’t bother your swiss making the tiny effort not to text. :-/
A blue tooth minikit is around 70 euro, less than the fine and points.
Anyone who gets caught talking or texting on phone while driving should be banned from driving it is as dangerous as drink driving in my eyes. It angers me when I see people doing it, its one thing endangering yourself while using your phone but how dare they endanger me and my family and other road users too. Selfish behaviour.
I only do it very very seldom when I can’t not take the call or stop, and only in traffic in the city when everyone is crawling along anyway.
Talking on the phone does distract you from driving, that’s for sure. But so do other things I have seen other people do while driving:
* eating or drinking coffee
* turning around to chastise their kids
* doing their makeup
* reading
* what looked like correcting papers (!)
There’s a serious lack of common sense in people. Driving on a motorway with a mobile phone and kids in the back is absolutely idiotic
If the law isn’t enforced effectively, how can anyone be surprised when people don’t obey it.
I think it is fair to expect adults to have responsibility for their actions, enforced or not.
Putting people in danger and claiming “Not my fault. Nobody stopped me.” should be an embarrassment to those who claim it.
All well and good in theory. I guess the question remains, how do you deal with the tools who do this?
And don’t get me started on the gormless spoons who don’t b other indicating at roundabouts.
I noticed I got a lot of thumbs down there for some reason.
I don’t drive while using my phone- just to be clear. Nor am I suggesting that’s it’s ok for people to do so just because the law is poorly enforced.
My point was that the fact that a lot of people do it is really unsurprising.
Every class of driver does it…the Gardaí themselves, post office and other delivery drivers, taxis, general public…all at fault.
Don’t drink for a weekend (for those that do) and you can afford a bluetooth or wired headset. You can get a wired headset on ebay for half nothing; some phones even come with them for free.
Ah sure what’s the harm innit? I’ve never been killed yet when talkin on the auld phone.
My house is on the side of a narrow road, with blind bends at each end, so I can see people driving past. The amount of drivers using their mobile phones on this dangerous, narrow road is astonishing. Only the other day, a man drove past in an old Eircom van pulling a cattle trailer, not only was he on the phone and therefore ‘steering’ with one hand, he was also driving far too fast.
I don’t drive, but if I did, there’s no way I’d use my phone while doing so. If you do that (without a hands free kit) then you’re an idiot.
You don’t drive?
Which means you don’t pay Road Tax.. or taxes on fuel???
You sir, or Maam, are soon to be lynched by a rake of angry TD’s…
and a potential murderer
I’m a Sir. And yeah, no car or road taxes for me…
As someone who has known several people (motorcyclists) killed by car drivers yapping on the phone, I rate this as worse than drink driving. People die. because of this selfish, arrogant stupidity.
afer reading a few more comments here: I have seem loads of Gardaí breaking the law: Uturns where its not allowed, not obeying hte speed limits, talking on their cell phones, turning without signalling, parking in second row. All of these are offences, despite your job. I looked it up and they are not excempt from the law, with the exception of hte speed limit WHEN USING THE SIREN. Corruption is the word youre looking for.
Just imagine you are driving while talking on the phone (and lets assume you have super-human powers and dont get slowed down in your reactions jsut by doing this). Now imagine theperson at the other end of the line tells you that your parents just died. Whats your guess, will you crash or not? Be honest.
Honestly no.
@william. Not sure about the Rice Crispy pun! but a worthwhile question nonetheless! I’m not even sure she knew, she was gorging that quickly with her big stupid mouth! Having considered it, I would imagine Shredded Wheat would be the trickiest to manage. Nestle don’t even bother breaking that down for you so it takes longer to get into your mouth I suppose. Yep, she definitely wasn’t eating Shredded Wheat!
I got caught connecting my phone to my hands freekit. traffic core are on a power trip.
I cannot recommend using the roads at all. The highways the length and breadth of this land are filled with dangerous blathering eejits. In future I shall only travel by train.
Ah its a stupid thing to do …
@Gerard. What makes them so special to drive so what if they are exempt it’s one rule for one and all that
Well the garda do we are all human..
Gardai are exempt once they are on duty and in a patrol car
So it is OK for the Gardai not to be in proper control of their vehicle whilst driving and endangering other road users, including cyclists. Which law does that come under.
have your say