Scottish traffic commissioner gets tough on lorry & coach driver phone use

"Lucky you"

Broken hand. Not my idea of lucky.

Joan is a feisty lady who has a reputation for spelling things out very clearly when she does keynote speeches, I've been impressed by both her and fellow commissioner Kevin Rooney (North Eastern Area) and from what I hear the Chief Commissioner Beverley Bell is equally robust.

The term 'tea & biscuits' is used by those on the receiving end of an invitation to discuss issues relating to their 'good repute' to operate commercial vehicles, and it is surprising what the Commissioners can do to get the bad drivers and operators off the road, provided they get the appropriate information.

I'd recommend trying to get a local Traffic Commissioner, or the DVSA examiners to give a presentation to any road safety group in your area. They have a surprising amount of intelligence that is used to target the vehicles and drivers most likely to be a danger on the road and can revoke the vocational classes of licence for drivers who fail the 'repute' test.

And compared to "down south" the roads are shocking up here, Drivers may not kill you, but the potholes will.

from what I can tell, the Scottish police are also pretty keen to back cyclists up when there's an incident

Not in my experience. I was knocked off by a driver while cycling on a segregated cycle path. The police said it would be my word against his...
I just went down the insurance claim route instead, with British Cycling's excellent legal assistance.
If you move to Scotland looking for a safer cycling environment and a commitment to cycling safety, you are going to be very disappointed. The Scottish Government and local authorities talk a lot but are not doing anything significant.

This policy is a good move, but it's only tackling the tip of the iceberg when you look at the thousands of private drivers texting, talking and browsing the internet.

1. The idea of 'blocking' a call is not a starter - the interference with other legitimate mobile users around the vehicle would be untenable.

2. Phones could be fitted with apps that prevent their use when driving is detected through GPS speed and location. This would be very easy to do, especially for firms that issue devices or have corporate OS builds.

3. Passengers wouldn't be able to use their phones either, if this was the case. Possibly for company cars/phones, the app could only activate when paired with the car's bluetooth kit. i.e. it knows it's in a car that the phone's owner is going to be driving.

4. This wouldn't work for rental cars.

5. Basically, company policy should make it an instant dismissal offence for use of a mobile at the wheel.

6. Insurance companies should explicitly rule out cover for any collision where a mobile was in use at the time, hands-free, wired headset or in-hand.

At last some common sense politics. Can we now see firms getting large fines for drivers who are speeding and jumping red lights in company vehicles as well?

If the excuse from drivers is that their company puts pressure on them to get from A to B quicker than the speed limits allow, then the company should face massive fines as a result. The driver gets 3 points and £80, charge the company 10% of the employees annual earnings (let's include those bonuses, rather than the basic that reps work to). Pretty soon companies will start buying their reps cheap small cars incapable of speeding instead of overpowered German w**kermobiles.

If the very act of conversing is so distracting, perhaps carrying passengers should be banned.

At last, someone in authority taking pro-active action and using their position to make a positive contribution to a massive problem.

Can we sack our 'road safety' person (do we even have one?) and recruit Joan?

Well done Joan, technology should and can easily be used to bring huge safety advances so hopefully this is the start of something to come.

If I can ride safely in Scotland think I'll move, the UK wants to kill its inhabitants.

Just introduce a technology to block cell phone transmission in a vehicle with its engine running. In a true 999 emergency, the driver is stopped and calling from outside their vehicle?

What shocks me is every week I ride my road bike around the steep hills in NW London and I will overtake 1/2 mile of stationary cars waiting on a steep hill

Literally every other car (not hard to see whilst on a bike) has a driver using a mobile device (some even on large tablets) whilst driver has engine running, waiting on steep hill, its during school run time so numerous children crossing between these cars.....

...if the Police could be assed to walk up these streets they could nick 100+ motorists for cell phone use, but I guess the celebrities and politicians wives are not desirable targets for the Police

If drivers & people in general had self control, having a switched on mobile phone in a vehicle shouldn't be a problem. Receive an emergency call when driving, pull over when safe to do so & then call back.

I nice photo of a truck in Washington - shame a British one wasn't used.

So why not ban hands free for anything other than 999, that would be getting tough, the rest is hot air.