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Aeroplane mode switches off radio, but if you have downloaded maps then satnav would still work I think.
My feedback thread is here.
I use my phone for sat nav all the time, but I never check email, send texts etc. when I'm in the car, stationary or otherwise.
What annoys me with the sat navs are the fuckwits who stick it on the windscreen right in front of the drivers eyes. You've got to wonder....
Anyone who thinks they can safely drive after two pints is wrong in my opinion. It only takes something - not even your fault - unexpected to happen and with slightly impaired judgement and reactions you could be in very serious trouble.
I will admit I used to think a pint or a single 330ml bottle was OK if I wasn't driving for a couple of hours, but now that Scotland has dropped the limit to 50mg I won't even do that. It's simply much easier not to be tempted.
Likewise on the original subject I won't use my phone unless the car was actually stopped, and not at traffic lights either unless it's something like roadworks where I know I won't be going anywhere for several minutes and I've turned the engine off anyway. And I know even that is still technically illegal if the car is on the normal roadway.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Alcohol effect is related to muscle mass and water content of the body, amongst other things. There's good research to support it. This is why different people react to the same level of alcohol differently.
It is quite possible for someone who has had several pints to have no funcitonal impairment, and to have low alcohol blood levels.
The law sets a bar that hopefully works for everyone, and reduces risk. What that bar is is the debate. I'd argue that it should be as near to zero as is practical.
Having said that, sometimes I'll have one drink of something moderate strength if I'm having a meal at a pub that's 5 minutes away from home on roads I know. I'm a little different from @ICBM in that I'm currently the wrong side of 15 stone in weight though - it will have less effect on someone my size.
I would never drink any alcohol if I'm going to be driving on a long journey, or on roads I don't know.
I don't think there would be much point in going below 50mg per 100ml though. At that point, I don't think people are significantly impaired.
My feedback thread is here.
My feedback thread is here.
How is that different from here?
My feedback thread is here.
My feedback thread is here.
That should answer most of your questions.
Basically, your brain has very clever systems of stopping you from crashing in a variety of distracting situations (kids screaming in the back, being angry, having a conversation, listening to the satnav etc), but those systems specifically break down with sensorimotor distractions such as using your phone, trying to find something in the glove compartment etc.
I'm with @CabbageCat on this one, driving is intrinsically dangerous, so people who use their phone are being criminally reckless IMO (not saying I've never done it, but I am saying if I caused an injury or accident while doing it I would expect the law to be very harsh)
A unit of alcohol is 10ml, so a pint of 4% lager is 2.27 units, 4.8% (Stella, Kronenbourg) is 2.7, etc. (The standard 2-unit "pint" as originally defined by the Govt is 3.6% - not many around like that these days).
As above, because of differences in metabolism/body mass/etc., some people will blow clean after 6 pints, some will be over the limit after 1.
(Personally, I think if you need to do the maths to work out whether you're over, it's probably best to err on the side of caution).
In the example above, the network does not know when you read the text, or how you read the text - just that you received a text. Many cars read out the texts, phones will read them out, you may have stopped, passenger could have checked etc etc. If they are purely using network activity to prove negligence then this is easily discredited.
For instance I had a two hour journey, the phone was in my bag and in do not disturb - no texts read or calls taken. However my phone replied to 4 texts saying I could not respond as I was driving, my sat nav made 4 google searches finding locations (POI does google search) initiated by voice, it downloaded some maps, 5 apps updated. All of this with my phone in the bag behind me.
Just saying the network knows your phone did something doesn't show if a person or machine initiated it, so genuinely interested in the cases where this was used for a conviction and the evidence given.
For what it's worth I am not saying to use your phone. I am very anti phone when driving, never do it, ,and hate to see people texting etc when driving and think the penalties should be stricter for both interacting with devices or drink driving
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Unlike someone going out armed with a knife and stabbing someone else. A knife is carried for a purpose and the action of stabbing someone with it is premeditated insofar as it was picked up in the first place, and the result of stabbing someone is reasonably predictable.
When knife murderers regularly get life sentences, then I might feel better about bad drivers getting the same.
Also, should the loss of life in a car accident be as significant as it is? For example, I had a pretty bad accident last year when I understeered into the front wheel and bumper of a slow moving milk tanker on a very rural bit of road. The tanker was a mess, my car was a write off and me and mrsrlw spent a few hours in the emergency department.
However, no-one was badly injured or killed, there was nothing to suggest dangerous driving and everything was settled very quickly. I got to attend a driving awareness course, which was interesting, and that was it.
Had that tanker been a 1975 Mini, I would imagine that all the occupants would be dead or injured and I would have been facing all manner of charges and, possibly, looking at a jail sentence. And yet because no-one else was injured and it was a property only insurance claim, I wasn't charged but, surely, as the standard of driving would have been exactly the same, this is a bit daft.
Perhaps drivers should be charged more often in fact, or points picked up for silly offences like running into the back of another car. Totally avoidable and no different, really, from running into a pedestrian, but one will get you nicked and the other, probably, won't.
Perhaps violent criminals should get real life sentences for their pre-considered actions while drivers still get the time off etc etc.
Rant sort of over.