Recording of the wreck I was in with my Viofo A129 Pro Duo.

[737mechanic]

Going home from work and this happened. If you don't want to watch the entire video the dashcam footage starts at 4:32.

 

[Dashmellow]

Good job! This is a perfect example of why we have dash cams!

 

[Michael23]

Hi 737mechanic,
That is why I run dashcams as well.
Can never tell what is going to occur with so many idiots on the roads.

They also record YOUR mistakes, if any, so it works both ways.

Glad that everything worked out well for all concerned.

Stay safe.
From "WAY DOWN UNDER" But not in Dixie.

 

[GTA Driver]

Was he drunk? He was turning into the wrong lane, and you honked soon enough for him to correct his mistake.

 

[Dashmellow]

Was he drunk?

I was thinking the same thing when I saw the video.

 

[737mechanic]

He was not drunk. I think he might have been messing with his phone and wasn't paying attention to what he was doing.

 

[Dashmellow]

Studies have shown that using a cell phone while driving is just as dangerous as being under the influence of alcohol.

Background: "Epidemiological evidence suggests that the relative risk of being in a traffic accident while using a cell phone is similar to the hazard associated with driving with a blood alcohol level at the legal limit. The purpose of this research was to provide a direct comparison of the driving performance of a cell phone driver and a drunk driver in a controlled laboratory setting".

Conclusion: "When driving conditions and time on task were controlled for, the impairments associated with using a cell phone while driving can be as profound as those associated with driving while drunk."

A comparison of the cell phone driver and the drunk driver - PubMed

This research may help to provide guidance for regulation addressing driver distraction caused by cell phone conversations.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Nigel]

Conclusion: "When driving conditions and time on task were controlled for, the impairments associated with using a cell phone while driving can be as profound as those associated with driving while drunk."

This bit should have been added to that conclusion: "When drivers were conversing on either a handheld or hands-free cell phone,"

 

[Dashmellow]

This bit should have been added to that conclusion: "When drivers were conversing on either a handheld or hands-free cell phone,"

Well, it's just an abstract of the research where I merely quoted the Background and the Conclusion sections of the study, however, if you bothered to read the entire page I linked to, you would have seen that hands-free phones are mentioned right before the Conclusion section in the Results paragraph:

"Results: When drivers were conversing on either a handheld or hands-free cell phone, their braking reactions were delayed and they were involved in more traffic accidents than when they were not conversing on a cell phone."

 

[Michael23]

Hi guys 'n' gals,
Down here n Oz, anyone using a mobile phone whilst driving will now be recorded by "special cameras" that have been developed & installed on many
of the sign gantries over the freeways etc., etc.
The motor cycle police are also high enough to see into vans, trucks & cars, so lots are getting stopped & fined for using their MP's.

BTW....T'is totally illegal to use your MP in Oz., but lots still persist in using them.
Couriers & tradies are the worst offenders.

Absolutely nuts!

ps. We even heard a report of a old chap being hit with a fine for using his MP on the freeway.
The thing is though...he does not own a MP or know how to use one.
Turns out he was grabbing his black wallet.
The video could not or the operator did not see the difference.
The old driver's fine was later cancelled, with no conviction noted.

 

[Dashmellow]

Ten years ago, in 2014 it became illegal here in Vermont to use a handheld phone or any other handheld device while driving. The law was finally passed after several high profile unfortunate events. One such event happened near where I live when a teenage girl texting while driving ran into and killed a man on a bicycle.

It is still legal to use a hands free phone, basically because it prevents texting but the law was passed long before any of these formal studies were performed that demonstrate that hands free phones can be just as distracting too.

Sadly, many people ignore the current law and many people get away with it, especially when they travel on our rural roads.

 

[Nigel]

The motor cycle police are also high enough to see into vans, trucks & cars, so lots are getting stopped & fined for using their MP's.

Our police have "Super cams" that can catch you using a mobile phone, or speeding from 1Km distance:

This is the police’s super camera that caught Nick Knowles holding his mobile phone while driving at 85 mph.
Knowles, of Coates, Cirencester, admitted the offences and was banned from driving for six months by Cheltenham magistrates today. They also fined him £1,483.

 

[Dashmellow]

Our police have "Super cams" that can catch you using a mobile phone, or speeding from 1Km distance:

The UK has evolved into a literal surveillance state as the most pervasively surveilled nation in the world behind only China. So, it comes as no surprise that the UK police would deploy such sophisticated, extremely expensive technology and manpower on its own citizens for the purpose of issuing traffic tickets. It's good to curtail risky motorist behaviors, but still, one needs to consider the price a society pays for such levels of scrutiny and loss of privacy.

In 2016 US whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted: “The UK has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes further than many autocracies.”

 

[Nigel]

The UK has evolved into a literal surveillance state as the most pervasively surveilled nation in the world behind only China. So, it comes as no surprise that the UK police would deploy such sophisticated, extremely expensive technology and manpower on its own citizens for the purpose of issuing traffic tickets. It's good to curtail risky motorist behaviors, but still, one needs to consider the price a society pays for such levels of scrutiny and loss of privacy.

In 2016 US whistleblower Edward Snowden tweeted: “The UK has just legalized the most extreme surveillance in the history of western democracy. It goes further than many autocracies.”

There is a price to pay if you don't have it too:

Road deaths per 100,000 inhabitants UK 2.6, USA 12.9.

So that would be a saving of nearly 7,000 lives last year, well worth a little bit of generally unnoticed surveillance.

If you don't want to get caught by the supercams, just don't break the law!

 

[DT MI]

The motor cycle police are also high enough to see into vans, trucks & cars, so lots are getting stopped & fined for using their MP's.

A couple videos I've captured of people on there phones. One a man using a turn-around lane the wrong way and a second of a woman so engrossed in her phone she was unaware of a motorcycle officer trying to pull her over.

 

[Dashmellow]

There is a price to pay if you don't have it too:

Road deaths per 100,000 inhabitants UK 2.6, USA 12.9.

So that would be a saving of nearly 7,000 lives last year, well worth a little bit of generally unnoticed surveillance.

If you don't want to get caught by the supercams, just don't break the law!

As is so often the case, your style of debate is to change the subject while eliding the salient points of the discussion.

Shifting the conversation to road deaths alone leaves out the entire question of the UK devolving into an authoritarian style surveillance state with the passing of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 which was ostensibly intended to enhance national security to quell terrorist activities but sadly has been turned against ordinary citizens going about their daily activities and private endeavors and this draconian legislation has led to the use of outrageously expensive supercams and police manpower for the purpose of monitoring motorists from a kilometer away who "might" be engaging in somewhat risky but relatively mundane everyday traffic violations like talking on their phones while driving.

While I don't condone talking on phones while driving and believe there should be legislation to prevent it, I also feel society needs to balance law enforcement requirements with the average citizen's right to a reasonable expectation of privacy. Here in the US in locales where talking on your phone while driving is illegal police officers regularly and diligently attempt to monitor traffic for such activities but they don't spy on you from a kilometer away using budget busting supercam technology. The simple fact of the matter is that the total amount of traffic penalties or fines could never possibly justify the cost of those cameras to local police departments. I can't help but get the impression that these cameras were originally developed by the UK government for the purpose of monitoring potential terrorist activities but have been diverted to monitoring everyday motorists and citizens for lack of anything else to do with them most of the time. This would be part and parcel with the enormous number of CCTV and facial recognition cameras deployed in the UK.

The fact is that these so called supercams deployed to capture drivers using cell phones from great distances are highly likely to have only a negligible impact on the overall UK traffic death rates and this ignores all the much more common causes of road accidents and fatalities which cameras like that would be powerless to prevent and which you ignore here. The is zero evidence that all those road deaths you cite are attributable to people using cell phones while operating vehicles as you imply in your post, but for some reason you often seem to like engaging in these kind of false equivalencies in an effort to make your case. Road deaths from cell phone induced accidents tend to be relatively minimal in number even if they can be devastating when they do occur, such as when the teenage girl I mentioned above who hit and killed a bicyclist when texting while driving. Incidents like this led to the laws we now have but they have been exceeding rare. Usually, distracted drivers cause fender benders.

My point here is that it always amuses me how compliant and willing the Britts have been regarding how sheepishly they have been more than willing to hand over to their rights and privacy to their government in ways that no other westernized democracy seems willing to tolerate.

 

[Nigel]

My point here is that it always amuses me how compliant and willing the Britts have been regarding how sheepishly they have been more than willing to hand over to their rights and privacy to their government in ways that no other westernized democracy seems willing to tolerate.

I think the right to life takes priority over the privacy right of a phone user to use their phone while driving in public.

I would much rather the supercams gather excellent evidence, as they do, than have the word of a police officer who claims that they saw someone using a phone while driving when they are maybe mistaken, or maybe just making it up. Why do you think 1Km range using a device that records clear evidence is handing over rights and privacy when 10m range using the eyes/imagination of a police officer is OK?

The fact is that these so called supercams deployed to capture drivers using cell phones from great distances are highly likely to have only a negligible impact on the overall UK traffic death rates

1% of road fatalities were linked to mobile phone use in 2020.

Plus, they are very good value for money compared to a police officer driving a car and stopping people!

Police 'Long Ranger' camera that spots drivers breaking the law 1km away helped punish 20,000 motorists in just under a year

 

[Dashmellow]

I think the right to life takes priority over the privacy right of a phone user to use their phone while driving in public.

So now it's a "right to life" issue? That's a rather loaded term you are using for traffic violations involving cell phones and loss of personal privacy considering how that term is usually deployed.

As I said, I believe there must be a balance between the right to personal privacy and public safety. If you as a UK citizen prefer to give up your personal freedoms, liberties and a reasonable level of privacy to live under the thumb of a defacto authoritarian government and law enforcement under total surveillance in a society similar to what is happening in communist China, that is your privilege I guess. Not me thanks. Thankfully, we have a Constitution with the Fourth Amendment that protects us from living in the kind of society your promote and for which we fought the Revolutionary War to eject the British from our country and get out from under British Rule.

The UK is the most surveilled nation in the world outside of Communist China. London is number 3 on the following list and the only westernized country outside of China on the list of the "Most Surveilled Cities in the World".

% of road fatalities were linked to mobile phone use in 2020.

1% seems like a rather low percentage.

Plus, they are very good value for money compared to a police officer driving a car and stopping people!

Twisted logic to me. What did you say those cameras cost?

 

[Nigel]

1% seems like a rather low percentage.

Then clearly the cameras are saving lives, by deterring people from committing the offences

 

[Dashmellow]

Then clearly the cameras are saving lives, by deterring people from committing the offences

Speed cameras and traffic enforcement do indeed save lives Nigel, but you are still missing the point about the significant dangers to a modern democratic society when a government subjects its citizens to ubiquitous, intrusive, mufti-layered mass surveillance and data collection.

As I previously pointed out, the United Kingdom has willingly embraced a level of intrusive monitoring and government surveillance in every facet of their daily lives in the name of "public safety and security" to a degree no other westernized democratic society has ever adopted or been willing to tolerate outside of harsh and restrictive authoritarian regimes. The UK has rapidly evolved into a total surveillance society, the likes of which would have caused the Stasi or the Gestapo to drool over. History has shown that once a society willingly subjects itself to such levels of intrusive surveillance in the name of security and public safety, sooner or later it always finds itself on an unstoppable slippery slope.

UK roadways are monitored 24/7 by no less than 7 overlapping systems including the HADECS 3 long range cameras you find so appealing. Meanwhile, Britain has more surveillance cameras per person, including database informed facial recognition cameras, license plate capture and other intrusive technologies such as precise individual location tracking and other multi-layered forms of mass surveillance than any country except China. Every facet of daily life in the UK is closely scrutinized including bulk data retention of emails, internet traffic, search history etc., etc. etc. It has become a true surveillance state where the government has somehow convinced the populace that this is all for their own common good and saftey (but even ten years prior to the passing of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 a YouGov poll published in 2006 indicated that 79% of those interviewed agreed that Britain has become a 'surveillance society'. Beyond government actions we also see an unprecedented level of corporate tracking of individuals locations, daily habits, personal details, preferences, histories, purchase histories, banking and investing information and even medical histories to a certain extent.

We have some of this same type of monitoring here in the US as do other westernized democracies, some of which is quite detailed and intrusive. But what I am suggesting here (as I mentioned earlier) is that societies must find a way to balance the need for public safety and national security with, the need for accountability from government, accessible records, privacy, individual autonomy, personal freedoms or free society will cease to exist as we have known it only to be replaced with autocratic rule not unlike we witness in Russia and China today. Fortunately, we in the US live under a Constitution and various sets of laws that seek to balance the needs of society and civilization with the needs and rights of the individual. Unfortunately, with only minimal exception the UK has gone sharply in the extreme other direction on these tenets, especially with the passing of the Investigatory Powers Act.

The Dangers of Surveillance - Harvard Law Review

From the Fourth Amendment to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and from the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to films like Minority Report and The Lives of Others, our law and culture are full of warnings about state scrutiny of our lives. These warnings are commonplace, but they are...

harvardlawreview.org

Facial Recognition Cameras Are a Huge Risk to a Free Society

The U.K. has more surveillance cameras per person than any country except China

time.com

The Ethics (or not) of Massive Government Surveillance

cs.stanford.edu