Driver was using TWO mobile phones

A motorist has been arrested after he was allegedly spotted driving along a dual-carriageway while using two mobile phones and steering with his knees.

Officers who stopped him said that they first noticed he had a phone to his ear.

But when they looked again they discovered he was using his other hand to text on a second phone

The driver, a 34-year-old Norfolk man who has not been named, is to appear before magistrates accused of driving without due care and attention.

It’s the ‘maniac’ government minister for Climate Change!

He’s been done for speeding… driving while using a handheld mobile phone… clocked-up twelve points and had his licence taken away…

But then as someone who knows very him well remarks he does drive a bit like a maniac.

SERCO driver on a mobile phone

Being a good carbon citizen isn't just about looking good on paper gushes the SERCO website.

Inspired by SERCO’s passionate sense of corporate responsibility and keen commitment to the environment, I sent this email on 12 March:

This morning I saw one of your drivers steering with one hand while talking on a handheld mobile phone. The registration number was BN08 EAG and this white van said on the side SERCO INCIDENT SUPPORT. The driver appeared to be a white male. He was evidently right-handed, as he was holding the phone to his right ear and steering with his left hand. He was driving west on the A503 (Forest Road, London E17) and I saw him at 10.20 am.

Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what standards SERCO expects of its drivers, particularly with regard to using handheld mobile phones.

On 14 March I had a reply from someone in Corporate Responsibility:

Thank you for your e-mail which I shall forward to our Fleet Department for initial investigation and response.

Since then, nothing.

Land Rover driver on mobile phone who hit cyclist breezes out of court

A DRIVER who knocked a cyclist over while on her mobile phone has been spared jail. Samantha Malik, 44, of Crink Lane, Southwell, appeared at Nottingham Crown Court last week and admitted crashing into the cyclist after using her mobile phone while driving. She pleaded guilty to dangerous driving.

The cyclist, who is in his 80s, sustained serious injuries and spent three weeks in hospital after he was struck by Malik's Land Rover in the Ropewalk, Southwell, on June 21 last year.

Malik was given a nine-month jail term, suspended for 18 months, and has been banned from driving for 18 months.

Sgt Brendon Hunt, based at Southwell police station, said: "The dangers of using a mobile phone while behind the wheel of a vehicle is evident in this case.

"The cyclist was extremely lucky to survive and has not had the courage to get back on his bike since the collision.

Kill while driving using a mobile phone and lose your licence for just three years

Keisha Wall, 20, a university student, was sitting alongside her mother, who was a driving instructor, when she lost control of the Suzuki Jimny she was driving and hit Christine Lyon, 63.

Wall had passed her driving test only months previously and was looking at the message on her mobile phone when she mounted a pavement and struck Mrs Lyon, who was crushed against a wall and died instantly.

Wall got her mini 4X4 as a present. She’s an unrepentant narcissist who turned up at court clutching her mobile phone. Her driving instructor mother was complicit in her reckless driving but has not apparently been prosecuted for anything, nor does her career as a driving instructor seem to have been jeopardised in any way.

Wall, like other killer drivers, enjoyed the powerful institutional protection of that creepy collection of individuals who make up The Sentencing Advisory Panel. The judge’s hands were tied:

Judge Stephen John said that the crash came under the lesser category of 'avoidable distraction' under level three for the sentencing guidelines.

This murderous egotist was therefore only banned from driving for three years.

Mobile phone driver already had 9 points on licence

Interestingly, in one of those rare cases where the police nab a driver using a mobile phone, it turns out he’s a crap driver with previous:

Westwood, 56, now of Woodgate Road, Stoke Prior, was banned due to totting-up because he already had nine points on his licence before an extra three points was added for the phone offence.

PE06FWJ

PE06 FWJ, large silver-coloured car, Asian male driver using a handheld mobile phone, Selborne Road E17, noon, 23 November.

LM05WYC: criminal driver on Ainslie Wood Road E4

I was cycling south along Ainslie Wood Gardens E4 yesterday.

I paused at the junction with Ainslie Wood Road for traffic.

And a black car reg. LM05 WYC cruised by containing a solitary white male, who was steering with one hand while chatting into a handheld mobile phone with the other. He passed by, then turned into the house on the corner, 99 Ainslie Wood Road, Chingford, London E4. Time 11.40 am.

The driver may not live at this house but simply have been a visitor. I decided not to seek a confrontation but simply to photograph the car and house once he’d gone inside. The driver is presumably a father, as the car displays a BABY ON BOARD sign in the rear window.

Now I regard this individual as a very dangerous criminal. He is prepared to risk the lives of others by driving in a way which is unlawful, dangerous, and puts the lives of cyclists, pedestrians and other road users at risk. He’s a bully encased in a bubble of steel. But this smug oaf knows that governments wink at his criminality and the police have little interest in dealing with this kind of dangerous anti-social behaviour. Even though someone who drives while using a handheld mobile phone displays a disregard for road traffic law that is likely to extend to other spheres – speed limits, perhaps, or Advanced Stop Lines for cyclists.

The rot starts in Westminster, of course. As I am not a member of the Labour Party (or any other) I am indifferent to its internal affairs, but my eye was caught by this remark:

The new leader emphasised his belief in civil liberties and distanced himself from New Labour’s tough counter-terror plans.

But that immediately put him at odds with Shadow Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who warned: ‘You do not demonstrate your commitment to civil liberties by failing to protect the most important civil liberty of all; the right to be safe on our streets.’

Which is where I begin to feel nauseous. An establishment toady like Alan Johnson has never displayed the slightest interest in ‘the right to be safe on our streets’. Terrorism is obviously a danger but it’s by no means the biggest threat to life and limb in Britain. Statistically, it’s an insignificant threat. Terrorists have killed 52 people in Britain in the past 10 years; drivers have killed 35,0000. I do not personally feel remotely in danger from terrorists. But I do feel in danger from people like the man who drove into 99 Ainslie Wood Road, London E4 9DD, whose yobbish and dangerous behaviour enjoys the tacit complicity of the petrolhead ConDem government and the car supremacist Metropolitan Police.

Ascham Homes driver on a mobile phone: my complaint is upheld

Most of the time I can’t be bothered to complain about bad drivers but occasionally I make the effort. The Council acknowledges complaints about LBWF drivers but I never hear another word about the outcome. And the NHS, as readers may recall, is incapable of identifying a vehicle covered in NHS livery with the word AMBULANCE on the back.

But at last I’ve had a good response to a complaint and from Ascham Homes of all people. This did surprise me, in view of their negative coverage in the local press. Credit where credit is due: they investigated and have been good enough to tell me about the outcome. This is the key part of their response (I have withheld the name). My complaint was about one of their drivers using a handheld mobile phone.

----- has now investigated the matter including speaking to the person who was driving the van on 19th August 2010 about the allegation that had been made against him. He admitted that it was possible that he may have instinctively answered the phone if it had rung whilst he was driving.

He cannot actually remember doing this on the date in question but he said it was possible that he might have, without thinking, picked up the phone and answered it.

----- asked the driver of the van if he realised that it was against the law to hold a mobile phone and talk into it whilst driving. The driver admitted to knowing it was against the law and apologised profusely for his actions stating that it would not happen again.

----- explained that, apart from it being against the law, by using a mobile phone whilst driving he could endanger his life and the lives of others.

A meeting was held with all the staff from the Caretaking Section and it was reiterated to them that under no circumstances should a driver of a vehicle ever hold and speak into a mobile phone whilst driving.

Written instructions will be issued within the course of the next few days to remind all staff that it is against the law to use a mobile phone whilst driving and it would be investigated under our personnel procedures should anyone be caught breaking the law.

FV10ZRN

FV10 ZRN silver car being driven on The Drive E17 by black male driver steering with one hand while talking on handheld mobile phone. 3.30 pm, 24 August.

R833HRO

R833 HRO space wagon style vehicle, being driven by male driver steering with one hand while talking on handheld mobile phone. Hoe Street E17, 26 August, 4.30 pm.

EF52KUS

EF52 KUS black car being driven on Hoe Street E17 by Asian male driver steering with one hand while talking on handheld mobile phone, 10.55 am, 28 August.

Anderson Roofing: a ‘Trusted Tradesman’ driver on a mobile phone

I spotted an Anderson Roofing vehicle being driven south on Hoe Street E17 (A112), the male driver steering with one hand while chatting on a handheld mobile phone. Yesterday, 10.42 am.

I couldn’t be bothered to chase after the driver to get the number as I was going in the other direction. It wasn’t a standard white van, more a van with a little cherry picker attachment on top. Anderson Roofing boast that they belong to the Trusted Tradesmen scheme, whatever that may be. Plainly it doesn’t encompass obeying road traffic law.

The driving record of Bolton MP Yasmin Qureshi

She’s a sturdy pillar of the House of Commons:

Family and religion are the cornerstones on which her politics is built.

(Yes, you will require a sick-bag, so please ensure one is nearby before you read any further.)

She’s also a shining example of The Law:

As a lawyer, she has worked for the Crown Prosecution Service

And now this shining exemplar of all that is good, decent and judicially respectable has been, er,

banned from driving for six months.

Yasmin Qureshi, the MP for Bolton South East, was spotted using a mobile phone while driving and when stopped by police was also found to have no car insurance, Bolton Magistrates' Court heard.

The Labour MP, who was not in court, apologised to magistrates through her solicitor who said she would now have the "inconvenience" of having to use taxis and public transport.

She had a previous offence of using her mobile phone while driving dating from May 25 2008 and two speeding offences, one in 2007 and another last year.

"For whatever reason, matters are being looked into by Ms Qureshi, on this occasion the insurance was not renewed, therefore she did not have insurance.

"Clearly something has gone wrong.

"As a result of administrative error or whatever it is, she is not insured."

Hat tip to Richard Brennan.

R295GDA

R295 GDA large white space wagon-type hybrid with a notice on the back about leaving space for a wheelchair to be removed, the male driver going south along Hoe Street while chatting on a handheld mobile phone, August 19, 1.14 pm.

Ascham Homes van driver on a mobile phone

Ascham Homes runs social housing on behalf of our glorious council (how well, you can read here). Or as one tenant remarked the other day “Ascham Homes are a joke. It takes a month, sometimes two months for repairs to get done

Yesterday afternoon I spotted the white male driver of an Ascham Homes van driving along Hoe Street in the direction of the Baker’s Arms, steering with his left hand while engrossed in a conversation on a mobile phone which he was holding in his right hand. Reg KW53 KRE, time 3.45 pm.

DA04TPF

DA04 TPF The Asian woman driver of this 4X4 (with at least one child on board) drove along Aubrey Road E17 steering with her left hand while talking on a handheld mobile phone, continued on down Milton Road, then along Byron Road. 12.26 am, 21 June. I snapped her as she stopped on double yellow lines on Hawthorne Road E17.

W314OGH

W314 OGH man wearing glasses (ethnicity ambiguous but not white), driving along Hoe Street with one hand on the wheel, the other clamping a mobile phone to his ear. 10.55 am, 26 June.

W213PLB

W213 PLB Veiled Asian woman using her mobile phone while driving along High Road Leyton, approaching the Bakers Arms, 11.37 am, 25 June.

GF08UAL

GF08 UAL Male Asian driver steering with one hand while talking on a mobile phone, turned right out of Bakers Avenue E17 on to Hoe Street, 11.35 am, 25 June.