Ban cyclists and e-scooter riders using phones, Tory peer urges (BBC)

Mungecrundle wrote:

I once had a nasty incident involving a spoon. How many people are injured every year by spoons? I think the good Baroness should head up a Parliamentary committee immediately to look into this matter before another person is needlessly put at potential harm.

I once trod on a cat, it was horrid, the cat screamed and I felt terrible for at least five minutes afterwards. I would like to put forward a motion that cats should wear hi-viz at all times and fines of up to £30 for owners of cats caught not wearing it. 

Mungecrundle wrote:

I once had a nasty incident involving a spoon. How many people are injured every year by spoons? I think the good Baroness should head up a Parliamentary committee immediately to look into this matter before another person is needlessly put at potential harm. But, yeah, cycling with a phone pressed to your ear or whilst one handed texting is a dick move.

I was once stung by a wasp on my finger, which then swelled up and hurt for days. Can we ban wasps that aren't wearing high visibility apparel?

OldRidgeback wrote:

I was once stung by a wasp on my finger, which then swelled up and hurt for days. Can we ban wasps that aren't wearing high visibility apparel?

Did it give you special powers though?

brooksby wrote:

That's the thing, isn't it?  The article says that if you were caught using your phone while 'something else' happened then the legislation on careless cycling etc already covers it.  So introducing a new law just for the sake of it seems redundant (especially when the Govt seems so keen to take a flamethrower to so much existing legislation...).

Alas this is in poor taste given what we know from the Grenfell Tower enquiry. But yes, "hostile environment" for (most) migrants / the poor but "light touch" and "deregulation" for the powerful / loaded.

Mungecrundle wrote:

I once had a nasty incident involving a spoon. How many people are injured every year by spoons?

You need...

Spooooooon Guaaaaard

Don't mock - more people are killed each year by bees, ladders, toasters and mobility scooters than by cyclists.

I'm being perfectly serious. I could have suffered a head injury, that ironically ( and without wishing to throw a cat into a wasp nest from a ladder) a cycling helmet would have protected me from.

I think the logical conclusion to the helmet debate is that we should all wear helmets all the time.

Getting in a car? Helmet.

Going to a theme park? Helmet.

Playing football? Helmet.

Going for a walk? Helmet.

(and that's just page 1 of Google News search results for "head injury")

To be fair to the expenses fiddler, she only wanted a law change so that cyclists are prosecuted in the same way that car drivers are.  Judging by the numbers of car drivers I see using their phones everyday, in practical terms this means no change. 

A driver gets a fine and points on his license. Nothing else. If the person is a below 17yo or someone without a license, what is she proposing for punishment if she said they should get the same?

In the extremely rare event of it being enforced, a driver might get a fine and points on their license but good question, what was her proposed punishment for the unlicensed? 
 

markieteeee wrote:

In the extremely rare event of it being enforced, a driver might get a fine and points on their license but good question, what was her proposed punishment for the unlicensed? 
 

Transportation for life, and then to be fined forty pound (apologies to Lewis Carroll).

This all sounded more like "I got startled ... and then that started me thinking - it's not fair".  I'm a bit "meh" about this whole story.  I don't think phone use while on any conveyance is smart.  Even walking about with phone increases risk to you and slightly to others.  Also this will go nowhere.  Even if it did it'll have no impact for reasons others mentioned. However it points to a couple of interesting issues which could impede progress in getting universal cycling:
a) people are still shocked by bicycles.
b) we tend towards a "BBC concept of balance / fairness" in the public discourse e.g. if one thing applies for drivers then the same thing should apply for all other road users (irrespective of transport mode).
c) Bike = car - people don't understand cyclists have their own unique set of requirements. They share some with drivers and pedestrians but are not the same as either.  Most worrying is that planners and even designers seem unaware of this.