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British teen imprisoned after texting caused death
Author: Phil CogarPublished: 23rd July 2007
Danger on the roads: texting teens.
Waites was driving to Newcastle airport to pick up a relative when she was rear ended by Begg on a rain slicked road. The accident caused Waites to spin out of control and to crash into a crash barrier where she died at the scene from neck injuries.
Crash investigation has shown that Begg was travelling at 70mph when the accident occurred and phone records show that she had used to her cell phone in the fifteen minutes prior to the crash.
The preceding judge told the courts that “To send a text message is even more perilous at night in a darkened car.”
The incident proves that the tougher mobile phone laws that were introduced in February were required, but should the government go one step further and ban the use of mobile phones in vehicles if they're not completely hands-free? Share your thoughts with us in the forums.
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Comments (46)Stats: 0.063 seconds
Alan Wake indeed. Obviously its GTA4
Just ban the use of mobile phones in cars. Or actually have the police enforce the law, for a change. I see people driving using mobile phones all the time - why pass a law if you're not going to try to enforce it? Hell, the law is close to unenforcible anyway - why make laws you can't enforce at all?
It also says that she was texting in the 15 minutes prior to the incident, if that is the case it wasn't the cause of the accident, it's just something the Police are adding to the sentence.
But the car is not even that dangerous. Last week i saw some dude riding on his bike typing in a msg with both hands while listening to his i-pod. He almost drove straight into a parked bus. But he could avoid it in the last second.
Its a obsesion really. 25 years ago there where no mobiles at all in cars (maybe some expensive very weighty ones). Did anybody need it then? no...
Whats so damn important to make a call or type in a msg while driving any verhicle anyway? Car manufacturers should be forced to make a phone jammer inside the car so its imposible to use a mobile phone in a car...
You must be a karate-kid or builder type person. If i do that here. I have a 80% change to end in the hospital
N'ah, I just peg it. :)
And if you think talking on a phone is distracting, how about talking to passengers, want that banned too? How about the radio? You may have to fiddle with the station or the volume, that's a distraction... let's ban the radio too. Next we'll ban air conditioning just in case you need to change the temperature and get distracted doing that. :D
I have 6 classic cars (Wolseley's 1936,1948, 1955,1962 and 2 Mazda's 1977) as well as a modern 2006 Mazda, and the older cars are very uncomplicated with so few gadgets or knobs or butttons' for the myriad functions and extras that modern cars have.
I actually bought my partner a mobile last year for while i was in hospital, it sits in my purse and comes out for charging periodically and topping up the pre-paid amount, it is for emergencies only.
And dont say you've never used your mobile or text or make/receive calls in the car because i bet you have.
Take the latest Honda Civic or Afa Romeo. All the radio and hands free phone controls are on the wheel. Moreover, they have voice control. You want to adjust the airco? You just tell the car to. You also tell it to dial numbers, pick up a ringing phone (it even turns off the radio for you), or change station or volume. You don't even have to fuss with CDs because you can connect your iPod --which you again can control over the steering wheel or by voice.
She killed someone (Old, but still), through negligence and stupidity. It doesn't matter who she is or what her background is. I'm an absolutist here, true, but people exist in a society and agree to follow its laws. She broke those laws and got the appropriate punishment. Not everyone will have forgotten about it either, the family and friends will be affected at least and every little bit to stop deaths like this helps.
And i've never used a mobile in a car. But then, I don't drive.
There's a certain tragedy about it, but it is not only her life that was destroyed --we may forget about her in a few months, but it seems you already have forgotten about the 64-year old grandmother who got killed. In any case, laws mean nothing unless people are prepared to enforce them. Rachel may be a bright, ambitious girl, but that only means she should have understood the risks and the law better.
I've never used a mobile while barreling down a road at 70mph at night, in the rain, by the way. Certainly not nine times in 15 minutes.
Nexxo, I don't know about you, but I can hit the answer call button and switch it to loudspeaker without looking at the keypad quite easily, after all, many of us can push most buttons on a keyboard without looking at it, and that's 26+ button locations to remember. I also know plenty of people who drive one handed even if they aren't doing something else but are perfectly safe drivers.
Although texting in a car is stupid, even if the woman hadn't been using her phone she probably would have got 4 years because she did kill the woman.
With the second, I was thinking more of dialling out and texting, which is not at all comparable to operating a computer keyboard. Typing blind may not involve looking at the keyboard, but you do look at the screen for feedback. With a mobile you will generally have to do the same (unless you memorised the exact order of all the names stored in the phone book, and have absolute faith in predictive texting). You also need to take your eyes off the road to read texts. All by squinting at a tiny screen.
As for one-handed driving, as I said before, keeping a phone at your ear may block some of your peripheral view and definitely restricts head movement. And although we may all adopt the casual taxi-driver's one-hand slouch, the second arm is immediately available when required for sudden gear changes, indicating etc. Not so when it is holding a mobile.
Ban forever the driving licience for anybody causing an accident from a mobile, and charge them with the same severity as homicide (not even unvoluntary homicide).
I saw a women trying to turn off a main road, because she was on the mobile, a good thing to do - stop driving if your on the mobile
However, she was trying to perform the maneuver 1 handed because she wouldn't put down the phone - i mean cmon women - Just say "give me 2 seconds to pull over" put down the phone, get off the road, and continue your conversation - is 5 seconds really that important
On mythbusters they did Mobile phones vs drink driving
They found the mobile phone was far more dangerous then being drunk while driving, and although they did say at least you can put down the phone, you cannot stop being drunk, some people just wont do it
Now back to the issue at hand, even if she had used the phone 9 times 15 minutes before, who says she was on the road at that time ? - couldn't she have pulled over and done it then ?
Also, although it says she was doing 70MPH - it doesn't say what road she was on, what if she was on the motorway, that's a legal speed limit - and how do we know that the older driver hadn't done something wrong
The details here are so seriously lacking, its hard to really judge, so personally - i couldn't say whether or not she deserved 4 years
Edit:
Although it was rainy, she should have reduced her speed, 70MPH is still legal, and as i said - the details here are so thin that its hard to make any really conclusions, Also this was reported by the times, so expect a nice helping of spin on it
I hate alarmism and sloppy media reports like this, lets leave them for the Sun or the Daily Crap, yeah?
Hey, if you send a text but you miss, you may make someone's head explode or something... :p
Unless the person is driving and unable to answer a call, or busy at work, or in any situation where they cannot immediately answer a phone and have a phone conversation. And then theres just being polite, say you want to have a quick chat with someone but you're on the Tube and you don't want to be that person who loudly explains half their life story to everyone in the same carriage. There are plenty of reasons to use text messages, just as there are plenty of reasons for E-mail to exist in a world with Instant Messaging.
It doesn't really matter. She still "pulled the trigger" so to speak. She caused the crash because she wasn't paying attention. She was paying attention because she was texting while driving. She was texting while driving because either A. she's stupid or B. she thought she could get away with it because the laws aren't tough enough on cell phone drivers. Of course, I can see how it would be really hard to enforce such laws because a driver could easily just hold the cell phone down by their lap while texting and an officer wouldn't be able to see it.
What killed the women was a car crash, caused by this teen. Part of the reason it occured may have been that she was texting at the time (it's not totaly clear whether she was actually definitely texting at the time) but texting did not kill this women anymore than the concept of stupidity or the existance of phone manufacturers killed this woman.
Why not reform instead of punish? I think this sentence is alittle harsh, but this bint isnt going to be texting and driving when she gets out in 2 years time, if she does then she obviously enjoyed eating out the (butch) dyke on the top bunk a little too much
One warning to people who persist in using their phone whatever: "motorists should be aware that police carry out inquiries to see if a mobile was in use prior to a serious or fatal crash." And your service provider logs your every call.
the bright light will impair your vision for up to 30 min :-/
And while I do see the safety and common sense of such an approach, it certainly isn't practical. For example, going to an extreme of "banning" mobiles in cars period -- at what point or 'distraction' do they stop? No smoking (which I hear is fastly approaching)? No music/radio? No chatting to your passenger? Can taxi drivers have radios and answer pick up requests?
If we're meant to be so focused on what's happening ahead, why do the DSA testing bodies want learners to check their mirrors every 5-10 seconds, taking ther eyes off the road ahead? Surely that is distracting.
It will get to the point where driving won't be a fun experience and will become a hassle, if not more so (i suppose here in the UK it isn't for the most part!)
As for the punishment of the girl. I wouldn't say 4 years is harsh considering her stupidity caused a death which, more than likely, could have been avoided. Had she simply lost control, weather issue, car issue, etc -- it might be easier for the family to accept it as it was truly an accident. But she had the option of being smart and leaving her phone alone or pulling over to a layby or service area to use the mobile. Instead she chose to txt/chat/etc. Shame, but if some young 19 year old caused the death of someone in my family thru a situation like that I'd be more than upset at '4 years'.
You're getting silly now. Operating a fiddly mobile is a very different ballgame from just listening to the radio or chatting to your passengers... oh, just read the darn thread, will you?
Mate, I wasn't "arguing" for those stupid things, I was pointing out that when one thing gets banned it opens doors for precedence and different safety groups will argue that x, y and z are also unsafe.
NOt that I agree but you can see how the arguments can hold -- looking down at a mobile phone to txt is distracting, not just cos you remove your eyes from the road but your eyes have to refocus. Looking down at a radio to change stations or play with ipods, mp3 lists, etc -- I could see *how* people would argue it's also distraction. I'm not saying I agree with it but that others will find something else to ban...
Anyhow - doesn't bother me. I usually ride a motorcycle and simply accelerate well beyond any idiotic drivers and keep them behind me. if I can't see it, it don't exist!
For cellphones: Yes, sometimes you need to get an important call on the move. "Important" however isn't necessarily 'Hun, do you want Chinese or Pizza tonight?' or 'h3y d00ds, p4rty!!!11!!1!!oneone!" ... Certain businessmen I'm sure have calls come in that hold various aspects of the company in balance, where hours, minutes, and seconds matter.
In fact I could spend alot of time arguing either way about what warrants "important" and what doesn't and stuff, but there's no point. Its subjective and unenforceable. Besides, how many people drive with both hands on the wheel anyway? I sure don't. If a car swerves at you, you drop the cell, grab the wheel, and pray/swear, and hope for the best.
The story really isn't about that. People are always on their cell, but I can't imagine it being worse then singing to music or talking to a passenger, especially since nothing is MAKING you take your eyes of the road. ...
The story is about TEXTING. Skipping my rant about texting being pointless (anything you can text, you could call and say 30x faster.), I don't think there can be a single sound argument for texting while driving. It diverts your eyes from the road, even if your hold the phone up at window level you're still focused on the screen. You're thinking about the message you're typing, what keys to hit, and looking to make sure you dotted your i's and crossed your t's. If there's something you deem THAT important to say, CALL. At least its less hazardous. Otherwise, make sure you start texting on a curve. ;)
(Okay, yes, some people have memorized the key layout of their phone and can text without looking. Prove that 50%+ people who use cell phones can do this, and that it doesn't distract them from another task at hand and I'll apologize, sincerely.)
Radios: As far as radios go, the same objection used to be made for them as they are now for cellphones. Many teens died because they were staring at the radio gauge instead of the road and had the exact kind of accidents we have now with cellphones. I take my eyes off the road to fiddle with the thing (or more recently: To check the track name of the song playing on my iPod). Why not just embed the controls into the steering wheel. Cruise is there, I'm sure some cars have the heat and air controls there too. Scan up, Scan down, and presets 1-5. Wouldn't take up much room, and even if you couldn't do it by feel alone your eyes would be diverted for less time then looking all the way over by the stick.
Maybe all this came out to harsh. I don't know. Maybe I'll be told to QFT or maybe people will agree, or maybe I have the last active post for this thread. I don't know. I wish I had all all the answers, but like everyone else on here this is just my 2c thrown into the vault of millions.
Personally, HUD FTW.
In any case, I'm expecting a significant increase in auto collisions in the near future, solely caused by vehicle design: every car is now becoming progressively heavier--significantly heavier--which lends itself to more unavoidable collisions. Have you ever noticed the big push for crash safety, while ignoring a comprehensive vehicle design that could avoid one? It won't matter how many electronic aids are active during a vehicle slide in the snow, your heavier car cannot avoid the physical laws of mass in motion; inertia. Back to the poor vehicle design, slapping on all of these electronic this and automated that into a car is, in theory, improving the driving experience, whereas in practice they are simply more denominators to divide driver attention. They are also a sign of a coming generation of remarkably poor drivers.
My http://imagehost.epier.com/44263/allthumbs/canada_1945_1_cent.jpg
P.S.: as for the cellular phone in the car, I turn it off and throw it into the cupholder. It's only on for days I share the car. And if I use it when driving, I keep my conversations as uninvolving and brief as possible--it really f*cks up my karma when the phone takes from my driving enjoyment.