For those who say "We should be more like Europe"

jimpeel

jimpeel

Well-Known Member
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/...jail+for+using+their+mobile+phones/article.do

Drivers risk two years in jail for using their mobile phones
07.09.07
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Motorists who use a hand-held mobile phone or fiddle with a satellite-navigation system while driving could be jailed for up to two years.

Prosecutors have said they could be charged with dangerous driving in a dramatically tougher approach to such offences.

Those caught fiddling with an MP3 music player or texting on a mobile at the wheel could also face the charge.

Prosecutions will be brought whenever it is judged that using the equipment posed a danger, such as forcing a car to swerve or causing a distracted motorist to jump a red light.

Those who kill while using a mobile phone will face 14 years behind bars under the charge of causing death by dangerous driving.

Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald said: "There is widespread public concern about the use of mobile phones and other hand-held electronic equipment while driving.

"We accept that in cases where there is clear evidence that danger has been caused by their use - such as texting while driving - then our policy should spell out that the starting point for charging will be dangerous driving."

Motoring groups said the move was a "dramatic" heightening of the seriousness of the offence.

The current offence of careless driving, which applies to those who drive unsafely by using a mobile or equipment such as a satellite-navigation system, carries only a £2,500 fine or community order.

More commonly, drivers are punished for the simple offence of using a mobile while driving which, since February, carries a fine of £60 and three penalty points.

The changes follow a Crown Prosecution Service review of the penalties for "bad driving", which also suggests a charge of manslaughter could be brought in some cases against drivers who kill.

Supporters say that despite fines and penalty points for using a mobile, many drivers still flout the law, sometimes with fatal consequences.

Trinity Taylor, 23, from Aldershot, Hampshire, died in 2005 after lorry driver John Payne ran into her car on the M3 in Basingstoke while using his mobile.

Payne, 31, of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, was jailed for four years.

But Edmund King, of the RAC Foundation, said existing punishments should be properly enforced.

He said: "The message to motorists is clearly that, if you are using a hand-held mobile or satnav, beware because the law is going to clamp down on you."

He added: "If it really is interpreted that using a handheld mobile phone is dangerous driving, that is a dramatic change to what is currently happening.

"Despite the threat of three penalty points, which could be a threat to a person's livelihood, we all see thousands of motorists driving dangerously using mobile phones.

"It is not just about sentencing, it is about enforcement. We ought to look at what is alreadly in law first."

Paul Smith, of campaign group Safe Speed, said careless driving - the current charge - is not an offence that most drivers commit deliberately.

Shifting it to a new category of dangerous driving will therefore have no deterrent effect, he claimed.

Mr Smith said extreme care should be taken when deciding to prosecute a driver.

"You cannot say because someone had a mobile phone they were driving dangerously. There must be evidence they were actually posing a danger to other people."

Under the changes, motorists who cause death on the roads face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Current guidelines say manslaughter is "very rarely appropriate" in road death cases.

But, under reforms being introduced on September 24 this year, a driver who has killed on the roads could be charged with manslaughter as well as causing death by dangerous driving, leaving a jury open to return the lower charge if they find manslaughter has not been proved.

Full guidance due later this year will contain more details of which offences are to be prosecuted more harshly.
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Works for me. Now set up the traffic cam web that London has and you'll have the concrete proof to jail them.
 
Some woman almost ran into me as I was walking on the sidewalk and she was coming out of a parking lot a couple weeks ago. She was too busy with her phone conversation to bother watching for pedestrians.

She finally came to a stop a foot away from me. Since she still was wrapped up in her conversation she actually started going again before my friend was out of her path making him jump out of the way. He banged his fist on the hood as we both yelled at her to get off the phone before she killed someone.

She just sped off shaking her head with the phone stuck to her ear.
 
Thinking how rude and ignorant you were, no doubt. That's always been the flaw in the American system. You may have wanted to give everyone equal rights ... but you erred in claiming them equal in all ways. The sheeple started believing it.
 
Let's just jail everyone or, better yet, simply lobotomize the entire lot and be done with it.
 
No, just close the hospitals and let them take care of themselves for a change. It's called evolution. Whenever you preserve the weak, and let them propagate, you ruin the species.
 
Professur said:
No, just close the hospitals and let them take care of themselves for a change. It's called evolution. Whenever you preserve the weak, and let them propagate, you ruin the species.
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Still too easy. Make the sentence for all crime the death penalty, the execution within 6 weeks of the trial, and the organs the property of the crime victims. Make any protest to this law an immediate death sentence.
 
Drivers risk two years in jail for using their mobile phones
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About damn time. I refuse to talk and drive at the same time. I either don't answer it or pull off the road until I'm done. I ain't in that big a hurry to get anywhere I'm going unless it's the hospital, and then I ain't driving.

It's dangerous. Oughta be a law, and it oughta be enforced.
 
SouthernN'Proud said:
About damn time. I refuse to talk and drive at the same time. I either don't answer it or pull off the road until I'm done. I ain't in that big a hurry to get anywhere I'm going unless it's the hospital, and then I ain't driving.

It's dangerous. Oughta be a law, and it oughta be enforced.
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Looks like Europe isn't alone. Check these out...
 
Gato_Solo said:
Still too easy. Make the sentence for all crime the death penalty, the execution within 6 weeks of the trial, and the organs the property of the crime victims. Make any protest to this law an immediate death sentence.
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You read Larry Niven?
 
Saw a truck on the way to work that said "Tree of Life" down the side in big letters. I'm probably too old to make the change though. :D

I don't know about the death penalty for outstanding parking tickets though.
 
I think it's kinda funny how an article about laws in England turns into a thread about being like Europe.
 
Well... individual identities are slowly ebbing away. There is the whole collectivist economy, banking system, and unified currency thing sweeping slowly across the region. Once you get into Europe they don't even check passports at national borders anymore. That is more reflective of statehood of a larger entity than true independence.
 
"Europe" includes countries like Sweden, England, Slovakia, Russia, Spain, Serbia, France, Turkey, Chzech Republic, Romania.. Not gonna list all of them. Trust me, they are individual countries with individual identities.

As for travelling etc, this has to do with whether countries are members of the EU or not (or have signed the Schengen Agreement). Between some borders they may not check your passport. It does not apply to "Europe" in general.
 
Starya said:
Trust me, they are individual countries with individual identities.
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Which is being eroded. From within & from the new face fo Europe.

Let it go, become the United States of Europe & begin infighting.
 
Gonz said:
Which is being eroded. From within & from the new face fo Europe.

Let it go, become the United States of Europe & begin infighting.
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:rofl4: Again. You're being even more amusing than usual today Gonz.
 
So nice of you to notice. Perhaps you saying something of interest would be in the cards?
 
How long before people are so afraid of leaving their homes for fear of being charged with some PC crime, or other infraction, that they fear to venture forth at all? That's what happens when you are a subject instead of a citizen.
 
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