Bloke gets off phone driving rap
It was an ear warmer m'lud
A GERMAN truckie has managed to walk free from a driving while using a mobile phone charge using the lame excuse that he was warming his ears.
According to IOL.co.za, the wigged ones of Hamm believed that Walter Klein had not been using the phone to make a call.
Instead they accepted that he was using the nice warm phone to warm his ears.
Now we know this might sound like the weakest excuse ever. But Klein did have some evidence. He pulled all his phone records to show that no calls had been made during the period before he was fingered by the coppers.
The phone was being recharged and was nice and warm. Klein had an earache and the cab was freezing so he clamped the phone to his shell-likes to defrost them.
It is the danger of being too specific in your law writing. The law states that you should make calls only using 'hands free' devices. You are just as likely to plough your rig through school buses or drive through a red light trying to balance a warm phone between your ear and shoulder as you are when you are actually making a call. µ
L'Inq
IOL.co.za
Comments
Actually, No
The research shows that the danger isn't in only having one hand on the wheel, it's in having the attention distracted by doing something else (i.e. talking on the phone). Whether the call is made hands-free or not makes no difference to the risk, since the attention is still distracted.Paying attention
Here in the paradise that Czech Republic is, the law says that you must not hold any kind of communication device in your hand while driving. It doesn't mention making a call at all. So warming one's ear with the phone would be just as illegal. However, were he warming his ear with a non-communication device, he would be a model citizen. Now, was't the old law saying that you simply must pay attention to driving perfectly good for this brave new world?Quality Excuse
How about he could have been RECEIVING a call ;-)I disagree
>"You are just as likely to plough your rig through school buses or drive through a red light trying to balance a warm phone between your ear and shoulder as you are when you are actually making a call."Was he holding the phone in the crook of his neck? I would say it's obvious that it is not the act of holding something to your ear that causes the problem, it is the drivers preoccupation with the telephone call. That's why it's ridiculous that the law bans hand-held mobiles when it should just ban making a call altogether.
Driving while distracted
I don't know the laws in Germany but here in the states there has been a law on the books long before the use of mobile phones. It's call driving while distracted. If this person had been cited for that infraction it would have stuck. This fact that such a law existed is what makes the hands free law a nice gimmick for politicians, it is completely redundant.