We all know the temptation ourselves, and we all know the irritation felt at others doing it. Yes, using a mobile telephone while driving is as easy to do as it is stupid. It is well worth remembering that even if, while using a mobile phone, you're involved in a car accident that is not your fault your entitlement to car accident compensation may be greatly reduced.
On 1st December last year it became illegal to talk on a handheld mobile while driving. Currently the penalty is set at a minimum £60 fine in addition to three driver's license penalty points. The evidence supporting this change in the law was clear. According to one study, reaction times when using a mobile phone, even a hands-free, are greatly reduced. In fact, they are even slower than when just over the legal drink-driving limit.
Unfortunately, there is much to suggest that since 1st December people have continued to use handheld mobiles while driving, treating the new law as if it were nothing more than a trivial impediment to their own civil liberties. I see them, literally every day, blatantly pulling out of intersections with a phone in one hand and steering wheel limply held in the other, guiltily avoiding my gaze.
Somehow, the government's message has been lost on them. Not only do they risk serious personal injury, or worse, a fatal accident, but they also jeopardise their chances of making a car accident compensation claim in the event of anything going wrong. Any no win, no fee solicitors is going to think twice about representing a driver making a road accident claim who was breaking the law at the time of the incident.
A train to catch, a mobile, the headmaster's wife and a neck brace
But, as they say, 'old habits die hard'. I know how easy it is. Just last week, I was in a rush to make my train - little did I know that it was running nearly an hour late anyway - when my phone rang. Instinctively I leaned to forage it from the passenger seat and blindly pressed at the little green button.
"Hello." I panted.
"It's-"
"Sorry. [expletive deleted]. I've got to go. I forgot. I'm breaking the [expletive deleted again] law." And that was it, without any further niceties, I ended the call.
Once I'd settled comfortably on the train, I returned the call I'd earlier had to end so abruptly. I was, I think, understandably horrified to discover that the call had been from the Headmaster of my daughter's school. He was calling because the week before I'd been appointed to the board of school governors.
"Are you alright?"
"Er.Yes, fine."
"Which law exactly, might I ask, were you breaking?"
Once I'd explained, he was very sympathetic. He completely understood my position through the experience of his wife's own recent misfortune, and even forgave my expletives.
She was in a neck brace, he told me. She had been since receiving a whiplash injury in a car crash five weeks earlier. She still hadn't been able to return to work.
"We've gone through a no win, no fee solicitors, but they've advised us that her whiplash compensation claim will be considerably reduced because she was on her mobile at the time of the car accident."
It seems that the headmaster's wife and I are not alone when it comes to risking both serious personal injury and our chances of successfully claiming car accident compensation.
Mobile offences still widespread
Recent statistics show that more than 246 drivers a day are fined in England and Scotland for using handheld mobile phones since the implementation of tougher penalties for the offence. This figure does not even account for some of Britain's largest police forces, including the Metropolitan Police in London, so in reality the figures are likely to be far higher.
Since the new laws took effect, a cultural shift in attitudes towards mobile phone use while driving is slowly taking place. This will inevitably have an impact on road accident claims and car accident compensation payouts. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents hopes that eventually the use of a mobile phone while driving will be perceived to be as unacceptable as drink-driving. Their research shows that drivers using a mobile phone are 400% more likely to be involved in a car accident.
There is a common misconception that using a hands-free kit is the solution. Yet statistics show that even when using a hands-free kit, drivers' response times are significantly reduced. Once again, this could be a factor in reducing any amount of car accident compensation awarded to a driver involved in a road accident.
Nor will using a hands-free kit exempt you from the wrath of the law. Since the introduction of the tougher penalties, more than 20 drivers have been fined for not being in full control of their vehicles while using a hands-free kit.
The new laws also have an impact on employers. For companies whose employees spend a lot of time on the road, there is now an obligation for them to provide their workers with hands-free kits. If they don't, the Department for Transport says that they face being liable for both any fines and any car accident compensation claim resulting from a road accident.
It is not only in the UK that the danger of using a mobile telephone while driving is a prominent issue. In Australia, police are reporting an epidemic of car accidents where they arrive to find young drivers slumped over their steering wheels, clutching mobile telephones with unfinished text messages visible on the screen.
A police spokesperson said, "It is becoming quite common to see unfinished text messages on the driver's mobile phone after car crashes."
A prominent Australian no win, no fee personal injury solicitor is quoted as saying, "My advice is this. If you want to protect yourself and other road users from personal injury, keep your insurance premium intact, and not risk your right to car accident compensation, then refrain from using your mobile phone while driving - whatever the circumstances."
I, the headmaster, and the headmaster's wife all couldn't agree more.
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