Telling off drivers on mobile phones
Special K
Posts: 449
Talking on your phone whilst driving and not having a hands-free. It's illegal now, right?
So what to do when driver pulls up next to you at the lights and is chatting on the phone? Ignore them, after all it's not my problem?
Tap on the window or get in front of the car and demand they "get off the phone"?
Seems a little school-teachery to be telling people off for their public bahaviour, doesn't it?
PS I've tried it a couple of times and it seems to work well. One chap got a bit agro this morning until I complimented him on the excellent paintwork on his new Landrover. Am usually much too middle class for anyone to find me threatening, but it seemed to shut him up pretty quick so he must have assumed I really was going to key his car. Is that really the image we have as cycle commuters in London?
So what to do when driver pulls up next to you at the lights and is chatting on the phone? Ignore them, after all it's not my problem?
Tap on the window or get in front of the car and demand they "get off the phone"?
Seems a little school-teachery to be telling people off for their public bahaviour, doesn't it?
PS I've tried it a couple of times and it seems to work well. One chap got a bit agro this morning until I complimented him on the excellent paintwork on his new Landrover. Am usually much too middle class for anyone to find me threatening, but it seemed to shut him up pretty quick so he must have assumed I really was going to key his car. Is that really the image we have as cycle commuters in London?
"There are holes in the sky,
Where the rain gets in.
But they're ever so small
That's why rain is thin. " Spike Milligan
Where the rain gets in.
But they're ever so small
That's why rain is thin. " Spike Milligan
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Comments
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I speak to drivers for doing that. I think it's essential that as many people as possible do this, because that social pressure will make a difference to the number of idiots out there who are on the phone. It's more dangerous than drink driving apparently, and stopping someone from driving whilst talking on the phone has a small but real chance of saving someone else injury or death further down the line.
I find roughly a third of people put their phone down immediately, embarrassed. Another third also do so after a bit of debate, and the last third just refuse to put it down or ignore me. That is, until I take my video camera off the handlebars and start to film them. Not one muppet has failed to drop his phone immediately upon seeing that, so far.
I often get cheered by other drivers and pedestrians who've observed the incident.0 -
I was in a heated mood, mid-summer, and I saw a bloke driving a Hi-lux pulling out of a junction in front of me on the phone, I made a gesture for him to place the phone down calmly and gently.
He replied a a certain "W" hand motion, to which I replied with a certain middle finger gesture.
He attempted to U-turn his truck in the narrowest of spaces, blocking up both sides of traffic, and within 30 seconds had 5 or so drivers telling him get the F*** out of the way.
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