Are hands free kits safe?

[Wizzo]

Motorists who use hands-free mobiles phones whilst driving have been likened to drink drivers because they suffer the same level of reduced concentration.

A study shows that doing so reduces concentration by more than a third.

And that loss of focus is said to lead to the same mistakes that drink-drivers make, such as weaving between lanes.

The study, by scientists at an American university, examined volunteers using a driving simulator while sitting inside a brain scanner.

Last month, the RAC Foundation found that nearly half of motorists regularly flout the law by texting while driving and a quarter have talked on a hand-held mobile.

[cosworth151]

The hands free sets are a great advance for some people I see out on the roads. It allows them to take notes while they're driving!

[Alianora La Canta]

There was some research at the University of Utah a few months back that suggested that mobile phone users' reactions when driving were 30% worse than drink-drivers. Food for thought...

(Though quite why cyclists may legally phone-drive in the UK and motorists not remains a mystery).

[John S]

I've never heard of a cyclist losing his licence Ali.  

Seriously though I guess a cyclist is endangering themself about a 100 times more and are pretty unlikely to kill anyone, except themselves.

Vehicle drivers texting or not using hands free are endangering everyone else as much or more than themselves, and plenty of deaths are recorded..

[Steven Roy]

This research is utterly stupid.

Nobody on a simulator is concentrating in the same way the do on a road.  There isn't the impetus to concentrate.  Some drivers will be distracted by planes passing at 30,000 feet.

I have been using hands free since 1989 and have never once put a wheel in another lane.  But then I am a fabulous driver and mere mortals may not be as intelligent and capable.

[Scott]

You've been driving in the same lane since '89?

[Steven Roy]

Yes.  And I am getting fed up of the M25.  Some days I think I will never reach the end of it.

[romephius]

Well here in Australia people on push bikes are actually governed under the same road rules as a driver on a motorbike or in a car, you CAN be booked for speeding (if you can get that quick), the can be booked for drink driving, using a mobile phone while riding.  All of these traffic offences WILL affect your licence if you have one.  I know of at least 1 person in my city that has lost his licence for drink 'riding'.

I like our rules.

Rom

[Dare]

If you are convicted here of operating a
boat under the influence of alcohol you would
also lose your licence to drive a motor vehicle

[Scott]

Isn't it a shame?  I miss booze cruises.  Everything was fine back when people had the sense to putter around at about 2mph when they were having one (and yes, turn the friggin' lights on at night so you don't get mowed down).  Just the occassional steering adjustment and you could party for hours.  I remember when there weren't even cops in boats on our lake (which was big - Lake Muskoka - 22miles long by about 12 wide with thousands of islands).  Now they are all over the place.

[Alianora La Canta]

Drink-boating is illegal in the UK, but it's not very well enforced - there are a grand total of two maritime law to cover all of England's inland waterways (the rest focus on boats in seas). And one of them is usually in the Lake District...

[cosworth151]

I have a friend whose 20-something son got nicked for being drunk on a bicycle.

I think the fact that he was riding double with his drunk girlfriend at the time might have had something to do with it. That and fact that he had just lost his driver's licence for D.U.I.

Oh yes, he got busted when he rode into the back of a cop car that was stopped at a light.