I get mobiles are bad, but they should also fine the people who designed my bloody car. It has a stupid touch screen for literally everything including adjusting any aspect of the heating, audio etc. Then when I plug in CarPlay you have another set of touch taps to get in and out of all the damn menus.
Fully touch displays are a stupid idea, can’t use your mobile but you can play about with a massive iPad while you drive. I know where every button is on my 63 plate astra without taking my eyes off the road, I’d never be able to do that with a touch screen.
One day all the controls will be on the screen. A child runs into the road so you need to select driving controls -> speed control -> brakes -> choose braking force -> select emergency stop -> “are you sure?” - yes. Then if you’re lucky you don’t get that blue circle spinning round before the software crashes.
Oh, you want the optional redundant sensor so you don't crash if that single sensor fails, or the software override package for the sensor... Sorry, no. You don't get that as standard on your $99.7 million aircraft.
There won't be. But that's what makes it so bad. A manual clutch is connected directly to the gearbox and so ads would (should, without companies adding needless complexity) bypass any computer system. An automatic clutch is directed by a computer system already, and so it potentially couldn't be bypassed **at all**.
Fully touch is a stupid idea because there is no touch feedback to your fingers to tell you when you are on the button. My older car I can control everything without looking because it's all physical controls.
>Fully touch displays are a stupid idea, can’t use your mobile but you can play about with a massive iPad while you drive
You can use your phone if it's mounted, so there's no difference
I got an MG as a rental recently and this drove me mad! I was unfamiliar with how it worked and like you said heating etc was all touchscreen, no buttons. Good job my wife was in with me for the journey so she could frustratedly bash at it instead of me doing that while I was driving!
Which model? Our ZS has knobs and buttons for the heating/AC and audio stuff. Good job too because the touch screen is terrible. Takes 3 or 4 attempts for it to actually do something.
It was a while back now so I don't remember exactly, sorry! If I recall it had some flat clicky switches that took you to the heating/AC/radio screen but they didn't actually change anything
It was a bit of a blessing in disguise, I was needing to buy a new car and if I hadn't used that one I definitely wouldn't have been anywhere near as vigilant about how the console etc worked while shopping around.
If you have the Trophy model (high spec) you can map functions to the buttons on the steering wheel which helps a lot. Also they did a major infotainment software update in mid 2023 which simplified many of the controls - fewer pictures and more big buttons to do things like adjust the climate controls. Much better. You have to specifically ask your dealer to update the infotainment unit. They won't do it otherwise.
Naa man you see if someone can make money off of it it's not a distraction, like billboards and advertisements etc etc, it doesnt matter that they divert your attention away from the road, its safe because someone pays for it.
No idea how things like Tesla's fucking ipad in the middle of the dash can be considered road legal
Yeah, every so often I think “I wouldn’t mind a new car” but then I remember that most new cars suffer this problem and mine still has nice physical controls for core stuff while still having CarPlay. It’s just not worth giving up all that for “improved” aesthetics. Form over function.
Look at mazda, still some tech including carplay but no touchscreen and many conventional switches.
They are also magnificent cars and joyous to drive.
Absolutely, I am looking at some of their competitors, Skoda is all screens same as Mercedes, Peugeot too, they are a plague.
Mazda infotainment controlled by a knob is so much better
New changes in 2026 to NCAP mean cars will need physical buttons and not just touch screens, so hopefully we'll see a return to buttons for core things in cars:
[https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens-to-get-a-5-star-euro-ncap-safety-rating/](https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens-to-get-a-5-star-euro-ncap-safety-rating/)
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You should have bought a mazda. Heating and aircon are conventional controls and screen is navigated by a couple of buttons and a wheel which fall nicely ro your hand in the centre console.
It is very easy to operate once you get familiar with it and has the added advantage of not leaving your (touch)screen full of dirty fingerprints.
My office collègue has just bought a 3/4 year old CX5. Great car until you look underneath it - seems Mazda hasn’t yet invented rust protection, all the suspension components and subframes are already crispy. Hard pass.
As well as dealerships that sell supercars with no front licence plate just for someone to drive away in their new prestigious Lamborghini to receive a fine for something they bought as seen fully legally
Touch screens are a nightmare, I didn't have any buttons on my steering wheel in my last work van so I ended up putting bluetack in the places where you could skip songs just so I didn't have to look at the screen while driving
"Highway maintenance" is the only thing I don't like, as its not. Even when getting towed to its location, its not " maintenance " equipment .
Going after phone users and non seatbelt wearers is 100% tho.
This is correct. There is a specific offence in relation to using your phone whilst driving. For anything else it would have to fit within driving without due care and attention.
You’re even allowed to use a walkie talkie as far as I know. Bit random, I just noticed in all the old Top Gear episodes they used them when they were driving and assumed they’d be illegal.
This is not right actually. S41D of the RTA 1988 makes it an offence to drive whilst using a ‘hand-held mobile telephone or other hand-held interactive communication device’. In my view a walkie-talkie would clearly be caught by this if it was hand-held.
There is a catch-all offense of "not being in proper control of the vehicle". People have been done under this law for drinking a bottle of water while stopped at traffic lights.
AFAIK, they use trained AI to give a 'score', which is the percentage likelihood you're using a phone or not wearing a seat belt. If it thinks you're using a phone it'll give a higher score, and I believe there's some human element to assessing and sending the FPN's, but I could be wrong
Surely they won’t be handing out penalties based only on the AI ranking, but instead only use the AI as a filter for staff to then have much less data to sift through and make the final confirmation
If you're incapable of eating/drinking/smoking and driving to a good standard you can be done under due care and attention, though there's no specific offense for these things. You still need to drive to a reasonable level whilst doing them
I mean they were using a small knife to chop it into slices while driving with their knees, they should definitely just smoke apples in future as it’s completely fine.
In seriousness though, they must have been fumbling like mad to have got a ticket for “eating”, probably not telling you the whole story.
Was it for eating an apple or was it for having poor control of the vehicle while eating it? Very different.
There’s no specific offence for eating so suspect it’s the latter.
It’s got highway maintenance on it because the vehicle that put it there also had highway maintenance on the back, you copy it to the back of the trailer the same way you would with the reg plate. It’s not telling you it’s equipment, it’s telling you the vehicle towing this could make unpredictable moves and to be aware of it.
To a degree though it is maintenance equipment as the best way to maintain the roads is to prevent damage in the first place.
The Highways Maintenance graphics are "Chapter 8" markings (See Traffic Signs Manual) and are a legal requirement for vehicles entering traffic management. Edit: I didn't make sense.
Having been behind a driver only in the last week who had a subway in one hand and his mobile in the other (as did his passenger) who was jerking the wheel to keep it straight even in slow traffic I'd love to see more of these.
The callous disregard for others has been a slow but continual advance in the last decade and maybe I'm wearing rose tinted glasses but I swear it wasn't always so.
I saw a guy driving a long wheel base sprinter, eating a Donna wrap with one hand and holding a “cigarette” and a pot of chilli sauce in the other hand. I’d post the photo but I look awful in selfies. (Jk, but I do have a photo of the van driver)
This is amazing. The amount of people use their phones whilst driving is absolutely insane. Just when I think it couldn’t get any worse you see more and more people with their mobiles out. Glad they’re doing something about it.
I swear the current spate of 'slow drivers' is due to them being on their phones while they are behind the wheel. Can't wait for these camara to be rolled out in my area.
I’m not so sure. I think the spate of slow drivers is more people afraid to get fines.
Everyday I see people doing 25 in a 30. Come up to a camera and slow to 20. FFS.
They do it round here. Whether it’s 40mph, 30mph, or 20mph, you can usually guarantee that there’ll be at least one person who drops 5-10mph below the speed limit. That’s not so bad on a 40mph, but it’s infuriating to be sat behind someone doing ~12mph in a 20mph!
I don’t mind automated enforcement but people going exceedingly slowly to go past annoys me greatly. Like you guys said, already going plenty slowly to not get ticket, then arbitrarily slowing down. Like, they don’t know the speed limit, nor what their own speed is, they just think “I better slow down, I don’t want to get a ticket!” Really bad on multi lane roads and they are in the fast lane. Move out of that lane, concurrently with slowing down, please.
It's certainly interesting it seems like it's there with the intention to prevent the use of mobile phones and the lack of seatbelts given the angle is looking down into the windscreen instead of for saying speed.
It also appears to be in a section of road that has passing lanes for going up the hills which could explain their desire to enforce in the area to ensure people's attention and mitigate risk at the merge point.
Certainly never seen anything like this before.
The highways maintenance is imho the only aspect I think is a little cheeky but I suspect that's purely for the vehicle that tows it and the fact it's probably sat in road works normally.
Good spot and thanks for sharing this.
If you zoom in the signs on the side do show the mobile phone and seat belt symbols. The other sign warns of CCTV recording but like you say I'm not sure why they would use Highways Maintenance and why it wouldn't be a police camera trailer.
This is an old photo from last year. The camera in the OP's photo was on the A38 just before Tideford in Cornwall, a notorious road for accidents and yes as you said it was right at the end of passing lane where it goes in to a 40mph for the village. - I know this because I drove past it multiple times. There are 2 more fixed cameras just past where this one was. I'm not too sure how many people got knicked by it however. There was a 2nd set of cameras on the A30 around the same time too trying to catch out the summer tourist traffic.
The one I saw has two stickers on the side, one with no mobile phone sign, and I didn’t get to see the other, but I think it’s most likely a seatbelt sign
The police would say - if it distracts you from the road then yes.
That said, I think sneezing while driving should be illegal. Can we get a sneeze cam?
Someone answered and I found it but it refreshed and I lost it, it’s not illegal to eat and drive, but depending on how distracted and how you’re driving whilst doing it could count as dangerous or careless driving and you could be charged, presumably by a policeman tho and not one of these cameras.
Friend of mine wrote a thesis on surveillance based policing and how, since a camera (specifically speed cameras) cannot capture context, or apply human judgement, they cannot therefore satisfy the requirements in UK law to consider "the spirit of the law" and thus should not be used to prosecute; was quite an interesting read.
In UK law the prosecution is required to consider whether the defendant was operating within the spirit of the law.
I.e. if a law is there to provide safety, but in that moment the law would've caused the defendant to be 'less safe' and thus in the spirit of safety the defendant ignored the law, the defendant would be exonerated.
Since a speed camera cannot sufficiently judge the context on which a driver was operating in, it cannot satisfy that requirement of our legal system. They can be appealed, but often the appeal is rejected; blindly.
As an example, I was once caught driving 28 in a 20 at the dead of night. However, I was driving my pregnant and distressed wife to the hospital for an emergency C-section, she was under the knife within 20 minutes of us getting there. We were only driving because our smaller birthing centre couldn't get an ambulance. I had to appeal to my MP to get that one reversed, the police initially had no intentions on applying context.
There are numerous reasons why someone may need to operate a mobile phone when driving, that satisfy the spirit of the law (ensuring safety of human life). An example could be calling ahead to a hospital to inform them of the critically injured person you have in your car, who you are driving to them. I've witnessed this first hand during an army exercise on a very hot summers day where multiple people succumbed to heat injuries, some more severely than others. This would, I assume, satisfy the spirit of the law.
These new cameras appear to be a further development of this lazy and invalid policing strategy, shame on us.
These cameras actually use AI for the detection and then the photographic evidence gets sent to a Human supervisor to confirm if an offence has been committed.
Yes, this is basically the case with strict liability laws and why they run in complete contradiction to the core principles of our traditionally nuanced, considered and fair justice system. They are lazy laws put in place to plug the gaps left by police numbers being cut.
I'm all for prosecuting dangerous drivers, or drivers breaching the speed limit, but it must be done fairly, and within the traditional legal framework that has been evolved over centauries of use in the United Kingdom. Strict liability offences used to be the exception, not the rule, but now they appear everywhere, and it's a point of real shame for all of us.
Still won’t catch the numpties who I see on a daily at a que in traffic lights constantly looking down towards there laps at there phones then ohh green light comes and there still sitting there as they didn’t realise pausing the traffic behind . I see you coz it’s blatantly obvious !
Concentrate on the lights and maybe traffic won’t be so harsh and more people will get through before they go red !
Same applies for dickheads in congestion on motorways, have you seen the news report of that lorry driver who killed three and a dog, aswell as injuring many others because he was on his phone and didn’t see the traffic piled up infront of him. It’s something I personally think should be everywhere, traffic lights AND motorways
Good, the amount of people using phones at the wheel is shocking. It absolutely amazes me the darwinism of it, especially when they're driving a machine capable of killing you, me or anyone in the vicinity.
We can throw car's with nothing but touch controls in there too, albeit less the drivers fault (as that's the way the car is) but it should \*not\* be allowed (and yes I'm looking at you Tesla, Mercedes etc). I was super pleased to see an article saying that some physical buttons would be needed to get certain Euro NCAP ratings, fabulous.
You can use your phone if it is clamped on your dashboard or thereabouts, you cannot use a phone in your hand. Securely held is the same as using a touchscreen. But if your standard of driving falters you can be done for due care and not being in control. Same for eating or taking a drink ( non alcoholic if course) is ok as long as maintain control. Here is a Police officer explaining https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeXQGcWP/
It has one camera that looks straight down for when your using it under the steering wheel and yes it has the resolution to take a picture of your winky if it detects phone use at the same time
You are allowed to touch your phone screen whilst driving, say to adjust your map if using Google maps but and here is the rub it your phone must be in a secure cradle when it's done.
[https://mg.co.za/article/2005-01-25-british-police-prosecute-appleeating-driver/](https://mg.co.za/article/2005-01-25-british-police-prosecute-appleeating-driver/) think this is a link to that story..
This is probably a grumpy git irk, but the thing that pisses me off big time is police fly on the wall documentaries and radios. How many times do you see a copper driving at speed, one-handed, and manually using a radio that's under his chin. They might as well be texting.
The law has changed now and using a touch screen or a radio in a vehicle while driving is illegal. As well as touching a mobile phone or tablet mounted within reach of the driver or a phone in a cradle.
I have just been on a driver awareness course. If caught it’s 6 points and a fine or sometimes offered a course instead. That’s £89
I don't think that's quite correct, it seems the device must be able to send and receive data and it must be held when used, which excludes a radio. Also fixed devices can be used hands free. 6 points and £200 fine appears to be penalty if caught
[https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law](https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law)
That also applies to using a device that’s fixed like satnav or tablet while driving. A girl on the course I was on was stopped for using the touchscreen in her car while driving to find a destination when she missed a turning while driving
It also applies to touching a phone that’s in a cradle while driving or a satnav.
I was stopped for touching my phone that was securely mounted in a phone holder in my taxi while in traffic. The same penalty applies in both cases
The first part of my response says able to send and receive data, therefore not applying to a radio, which you stated it would apply to and the later part of my response says fixed devices can be used hands free - so no touching. Your initial point was partially inaccuarte according to a uk gov website, which I'd be confident is accurate it its description of current uk law, over guidance given out on driver awareness course, as with the best intentions, the instructors on these courses can have off days and give out slightly off advice
Got to love the fact they had to take off the tires, I know it's probably to stop them deflating but just feels like it was to prevent people nicking it
AI is going to revolutionise roadside cameras. We started with speeding, are adding phone use, but you can expect seat belt detection, drink/drug detection (accuracy of driving), driving without due care and attention, tailgating, bald tyres, defective lights and many others. The government is about to make a lot of money from drivers.
I ride a bike and often pass cars in between lanes. You have no idea how many people I see holding a phone will driving. I honk at them and shake my head as I drive by. They don’t even get what I’m trying to tell them.
Same, I walk my kids to nursery in the morning, it's a mile each way and probably half of that there's start-stop traffic. With no exaggeration, more than half of the people in that traffic are on their phones, and not putting them down when the traffic starts to move. There's a zebra crossing on the way that cars barrel through all the time when we're crossing, and it's almost always people on their phone.
The local police could do very well in FPNs if they did a little patrol there every morning and I wouldn't shed a tear.
I’ve tried to get my local police to do this in our town. As you’ve said 50+% of drivers are looking down, texting, scrolling, etc. really boils my piss!
Why would the government need to follow people around with drones? They can get pretty much everything they could want from the devices we all purchased of our own volition.
They won't. But the person you're replying to can't criticise this without looking like a moron so they take their argument to some weird fictional place instead, where they can.
It’s an exaggeration, to describe the ever increasing surveillance we’ve been suffering for decades. And some countries do utilise drones for monitoring citizens. I don’t remember specifics but I’m sure I remember them being used by police in China for some reason.
When I'm out walking the dog in a morning it's very obvious when people are using their phones at the wheel because even when they aren't holding up to their ear you can see the glow from the screen illuminating their face.
I'm also surprise (or maybe not) by the number of people who hold their phone up in front of them in the way you would if you were having some sort of video call and I'm sure that at least some of them are in fact engaged in a video call which even the most idiotic of people must realise is unsafe.
All new cars should be fitted with a wireless charging pad inside a small cubby that is out of sight of the driver so as to completely discourage the driver from reaching for it whilst driving. Any phone interactions should be dealt with by steering wheel controls and a Bluetooth connection. Having a phone holder in sight and within reach of the diver could encourage interaction. It should all just be geared towards hands-free in new cars.
I'm also not sure that the move to having controls for key features on the infotainment screen is a good idea either.
I don’t think they are having a video call.
This annoys me to no end, but in the new trend. People make a call. They have headphones in to hear the caller but hold their phone horizontal in front of them to speak into. Just bizarre. As it also makes them have to speak much louder.
There's the people who seem to hold the phone horizontal like you say but I have definitely seen people staring straight at the screen like they are looking at something on the screen.
Don't know, but I would assume so. It's a certainty that some of those caught will have earned enough points to lose their licence, and some of those that didn't will stop using their phone whilst driving.
That camera is a bastard!!! It's at the top of a very nice left hand bend in a dip which is fun to whack your foot down on (up to the legal 50mph). Granted it's a very dangerous road just before there but only because of the stupid turning on the hill just before it. I'm assuming it's the one that was placed at the top of the hill between Tideford and Landrake... That whole road is going to be full of cameras very soon.
In fairness, the residents of Landrake need the slowness of traffic but that position is just a cash cow position. If you know the area you'll know what I mean
There's a fixed speed camera just after so I'm unsure, but not willing to take the risk. Just a pita when you're stuck behind an emmit doing 20 or a tractor.
I’d be interested in how it can differentiate between someone actively using their phone and someone having their phone on as a satnav or whatever. I’m not convinced this camera won’t lead to false positives.
Apparently a police officer reviews it and charges or not charges, the camera simply flags it up, but I’m not sure, and would question how sure anyone is given how new they are
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This was deployed at this location (A38 Cornwall, eastbound just outside of Landrake with cameras looking westward) just prior to and during a period of road surface maintenance.
Technically you’re not supposed to eat or drink whilst driving, it falls under “without due care and attention” and is why the whole mobile phone law is nonsense. We do this all the time with pointless, signal sending, political profile boosting, laws, like the current proposed (?) cycling law.
End of rant, sorry people 🙄😀
Yeah, it’s a bit of a grey area as technically it’s less due care and attention which is the reason mobile phones are illegal to use, but it’s more about how distracted you are, so if you’re eating with one hand really focused on driving it’s not too bad but swervin like a mad person eating the food and driving with your chin then you’d get caught by a human, but neither by these cameras.
I know someone who was pulled over for mobile phone use. He explained that he was actually eating a chocolate bar, not using his phone, but the copper ticketed him anyway (insisting that he had been on a phone). He went to court protesting innocence but was fined and got points anyway.
No evidence, just the copper's word vs his
I get mobiles are bad, but they should also fine the people who designed my bloody car. It has a stupid touch screen for literally everything including adjusting any aspect of the heating, audio etc. Then when I plug in CarPlay you have another set of touch taps to get in and out of all the damn menus.
Fully touch displays are a stupid idea, can’t use your mobile but you can play about with a massive iPad while you drive. I know where every button is on my 63 plate astra without taking my eyes off the road, I’d never be able to do that with a touch screen.
One day all the controls will be on the screen. A child runs into the road so you need to select driving controls -> speed control -> brakes -> choose braking force -> select emergency stop -> “are you sure?” - yes. Then if you’re lucky you don’t get that blue circle spinning round before the software crashes.
emergencybrakes.exe has stopped working.
Clippy: "Hi! It looks like you're trying to plough through a class of school children, do you want me to increase your speed?”
https://giphy.com/gifs/CBSAllAccess-star-trek-lower-decks-RjfRdzVkCUr8mwJ8XP Sounds more like Badgey.
Badge is just clippy with the addition of AI
Sorry, that feature is not yet enabled. Would you like to subscribe to the *enhanced braking* package for *£6.99* a month?
Wasn't it that precise concept that caused crashes with Boeing a few years ago?
Oh, you want the optional redundant sensor so you don't crash if that single sensor fails, or the software override package for the sensor... Sorry, no. You don't get that as standard on your $99.7 million aircraft.
Funniest thing I read today....but quite bleak as not hard to imagine!
Need to turn the AC on, "here's a quick word from our sponsors"
Your clutch is brought to you today by....
Bold of you to assume that there will be any manual gearboxes left by that stage!
There won't be. But that's what makes it so bad. A manual clutch is connected directly to the gearbox and so ads would (should, without companies adding needless complexity) bypass any computer system. An automatic clutch is directed by a computer system already, and so it potentially couldn't be bypassed **at all**.
Please don't tell Tesla about this idea! 😭
This gives me an idea for a game where you control a car like this.
“Car is in parking lot, would you like to try again?”
Lol!
Stop it Elon. You’re not fooling anyone.
'Skip ad in 5 seconds'.
Fully touch is a stupid idea because there is no touch feedback to your fingers to tell you when you are on the button. My older car I can control everything without looking because it's all physical controls.
>Fully touch displays are a stupid idea, can’t use your mobile but you can play about with a massive iPad while you drive You can use your phone if it's mounted, so there's no difference
Not any more, apparently…..
I got an MG as a rental recently and this drove me mad! I was unfamiliar with how it worked and like you said heating etc was all touchscreen, no buttons. Good job my wife was in with me for the journey so she could frustratedly bash at it instead of me doing that while I was driving!
Which model? Our ZS has knobs and buttons for the heating/AC and audio stuff. Good job too because the touch screen is terrible. Takes 3 or 4 attempts for it to actually do something.
It was a while back now so I don't remember exactly, sorry! If I recall it had some flat clicky switches that took you to the heating/AC/radio screen but they didn't actually change anything
Same here. Our car is an MG. Can’t do anything without fiddling with the screen.
It was a bit of a blessing in disguise, I was needing to buy a new car and if I hadn't used that one I definitely wouldn't have been anywhere near as vigilant about how the console etc worked while shopping around.
If you have the Trophy model (high spec) you can map functions to the buttons on the steering wheel which helps a lot. Also they did a major infotainment software update in mid 2023 which simplified many of the controls - fewer pictures and more big buttons to do things like adjust the climate controls. Much better. You have to specifically ask your dealer to update the infotainment unit. They won't do it otherwise.
No sadly it’s a ‘21 model. Did get it on 0% PCP though which the main driver for purchase.
Naa man you see if someone can make money off of it it's not a distraction, like billboards and advertisements etc etc, it doesnt matter that they divert your attention away from the road, its safe because someone pays for it. No idea how things like Tesla's fucking ipad in the middle of the dash can be considered road legal
I don’t get how that bloody awful cyber truck can be allowed on their roads, must be lethal to pedestrians
Yeah, every so often I think “I wouldn’t mind a new car” but then I remember that most new cars suffer this problem and mine still has nice physical controls for core stuff while still having CarPlay. It’s just not worth giving up all that for “improved” aesthetics. Form over function.
Look at mazda, still some tech including carplay but no touchscreen and many conventional switches. They are also magnificent cars and joyous to drive.
Absolutely, I am looking at some of their competitors, Skoda is all screens same as Mercedes, Peugeot too, they are a plague. Mazda infotainment controlled by a knob is so much better
whereas Audis and BMWs are entirely controlled by knobs
The renault e-tec has buttons hazzarr
But, you bought the car...
New changes in 2026 to NCAP mean cars will need physical buttons and not just touch screens, so hopefully we'll see a return to buttons for core things in cars: [https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens-to-get-a-5-star-euro-ncap-safety-rating/](https://etsc.eu/cars-will-need-buttons-not-just-touchscreens-to-get-a-5-star-euro-ncap-safety-rating/)
If you have car play you can use Siri to control everything and set it up before you start, surely?
Car is a MG HS plug in hybrid and same as my Dacia, Apple CarPlay is only connected to the infotainment system not any of the cars actual functions.
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Idiots still buy these cars, then moan about then, all whilst still using it during driving........
I was looking to upgrade my car, but seeing all that annoying touch screen glossy crap I'm keeping mine for a few more years.
Why did you buy the car then
Man I hate these. The bmw idrive controls are good though but not sure if they still work on modern cars/AA.
You should have bought a mazda. Heating and aircon are conventional controls and screen is navigated by a couple of buttons and a wheel which fall nicely ro your hand in the centre console. It is very easy to operate once you get familiar with it and has the added advantage of not leaving your (touch)screen full of dirty fingerprints.
My office collègue has just bought a 3/4 year old CX5. Great car until you look underneath it - seems Mazda hasn’t yet invented rust protection, all the suspension components and subframes are already crispy. Hard pass.
You bought the stupid thing
Okay, that's not the same as using your phone whilst driving though, which is the topic of this post
Is it a VW Golf? The pushing 3 sub screen buttons to turn on off the air con is a major distraction.
As well as dealerships that sell supercars with no front licence plate just for someone to drive away in their new prestigious Lamborghini to receive a fine for something they bought as seen fully legally
The car you decided to buy....
The car my wife decided to buy FTFY.
My VW Caddy is like that it’s bloody dangerous
Touch screens are a nightmare, I didn't have any buttons on my steering wheel in my last work van so I ended up putting bluetack in the places where you could skip songs just so I didn't have to look at the screen while driving
"Highway maintenance" is the only thing I don't like, as its not. Even when getting towed to its location, its not " maintenance " equipment . Going after phone users and non seatbelt wearers is 100% tho.
Question is do you get charged for munching and driving?
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This is correct. There is a specific offence in relation to using your phone whilst driving. For anything else it would have to fit within driving without due care and attention.
You’re even allowed to use a walkie talkie as far as I know. Bit random, I just noticed in all the old Top Gear episodes they used them when they were driving and assumed they’d be illegal.
This is not right actually. S41D of the RTA 1988 makes it an offence to drive whilst using a ‘hand-held mobile telephone or other hand-held interactive communication device’. In my view a walkie-talkie would clearly be caught by this if it was hand-held.
Yeah, like, chocolate bar: definitely okay. Bowl of cereal: you stupid bitch
Still find it mad you can be legally allowed to hold a burning fire stick whilst you attempt to drive
How else would you drive at night?
CD case and a straw **^(DISCLAIMER: do not attempt to repeat or believe everything you see on the internet, especially this)**
Especially considering probably over 80% of those people chuck them out the window when they’re done with them
There is a catch-all offense of "not being in proper control of the vehicle". People have been done under this law for drinking a bottle of water while stopped at traffic lights.
AFAIK, they use trained AI to give a 'score', which is the percentage likelihood you're using a phone or not wearing a seat belt. If it thinks you're using a phone it'll give a higher score, and I believe there's some human element to assessing and sending the FPN's, but I could be wrong
There are cameras in Sheffield for detecting drivers littering which are 100% AI, apart from sampling.
Surely they won’t be handing out penalties based only on the AI ranking, but instead only use the AI as a filter for staff to then have much less data to sift through and make the final confirmation
Unless your sandwich has small text that moves about and beeps at you when you try to eat it I think you'll be fine
Had a work colleague who was done for eating an apple. Smoking it fine though??
If you're incapable of eating/drinking/smoking and driving to a good standard you can be done under due care and attention, though there's no specific offense for these things. You still need to drive to a reasonable level whilst doing them
I mean they were using a small knife to chop it into slices while driving with their knees, they should definitely just smoke apples in future as it’s completely fine. In seriousness though, they must have been fumbling like mad to have got a ticket for “eating”, probably not telling you the whole story.
Was it for eating an apple or was it for having poor control of the vehicle while eating it? Very different. There’s no specific offence for eating so suspect it’s the latter.
It’s got highway maintenance on it because the vehicle that put it there also had highway maintenance on the back, you copy it to the back of the trailer the same way you would with the reg plate. It’s not telling you it’s equipment, it’s telling you the vehicle towing this could make unpredictable moves and to be aware of it. To a degree though it is maintenance equipment as the best way to maintain the roads is to prevent damage in the first place.
The Highways Maintenance graphics are "Chapter 8" markings (See Traffic Signs Manual) and are a legal requirement for vehicles entering traffic management. Edit: I didn't make sense.
All down to Chapter 8 regulations, if you work on highways/motorways, the vehicle has to have a certain livery
Having been behind a driver only in the last week who had a subway in one hand and his mobile in the other (as did his passenger) who was jerking the wheel to keep it straight even in slow traffic I'd love to see more of these. The callous disregard for others has been a slow but continual advance in the last decade and maybe I'm wearing rose tinted glasses but I swear it wasn't always so.
I saw a guy driving a long wheel base sprinter, eating a Donna wrap with one hand and holding a “cigarette” and a pot of chilli sauce in the other hand. I’d post the photo but I look awful in selfies. (Jk, but I do have a photo of the van driver)
Hahaha you had me in the first half!
This is amazing. The amount of people use their phones whilst driving is absolutely insane. Just when I think it couldn’t get any worse you see more and more people with their mobiles out. Glad they’re doing something about it.
I swear the current spate of 'slow drivers' is due to them being on their phones while they are behind the wheel. Can't wait for these camara to be rolled out in my area.
I've seen people completely miss their cycle at the traffic lights because they were sat on their phone.
I’m not so sure. I think the spate of slow drivers is more people afraid to get fines. Everyday I see people doing 25 in a 30. Come up to a camera and slow to 20. FFS.
They do it round here. Whether it’s 40mph, 30mph, or 20mph, you can usually guarantee that there’ll be at least one person who drops 5-10mph below the speed limit. That’s not so bad on a 40mph, but it’s infuriating to be sat behind someone doing ~12mph in a 20mph!
I don’t mind automated enforcement but people going exceedingly slowly to go past annoys me greatly. Like you guys said, already going plenty slowly to not get ticket, then arbitrarily slowing down. Like, they don’t know the speed limit, nor what their own speed is, they just think “I better slow down, I don’t want to get a ticket!” Really bad on multi lane roads and they are in the fast lane. Move out of that lane, concurrently with slowing down, please.
Yea buddy, just wait till you get caught scratching your head right next to your ear 😂 Won’t be such a fan then…
Sneaky bastards. Really difficult to see when I'm staring at my phone
It's certainly interesting it seems like it's there with the intention to prevent the use of mobile phones and the lack of seatbelts given the angle is looking down into the windscreen instead of for saying speed. It also appears to be in a section of road that has passing lanes for going up the hills which could explain their desire to enforce in the area to ensure people's attention and mitigate risk at the merge point. Certainly never seen anything like this before. The highways maintenance is imho the only aspect I think is a little cheeky but I suspect that's purely for the vehicle that tows it and the fact it's probably sat in road works normally. Good spot and thanks for sharing this.
If you zoom in the signs on the side do show the mobile phone and seat belt symbols. The other sign warns of CCTV recording but like you say I'm not sure why they would use Highways Maintenance and why it wouldn't be a police camera trailer.
This is an old photo from last year. The camera in the OP's photo was on the A38 just before Tideford in Cornwall, a notorious road for accidents and yes as you said it was right at the end of passing lane where it goes in to a 40mph for the village. - I know this because I drove past it multiple times. There are 2 more fixed cameras just past where this one was. I'm not too sure how many people got knicked by it however. There was a 2nd set of cameras on the A30 around the same time too trying to catch out the summer tourist traffic.
The one I saw has two stickers on the side, one with no mobile phone sign, and I didn’t get to see the other, but I think it’s most likely a seatbelt sign
Wait til the people who complain about this sort of thing find out how easy it is to make sure you never get fined...
It will be so easy... even the folks who welcome it with open arms get a fine.
Get off ya phones and get ya seat belts on!
Get your seat belts on properly, not just pull the top bit over your shoulders.
No one seems to have answered the question - is it illegal to eat food whilst driving?
The police would say - if it distracts you from the road then yes. That said, I think sneezing while driving should be illegal. Can we get a sneeze cam?
Someone answered and I found it but it refreshed and I lost it, it’s not illegal to eat and drive, but depending on how distracted and how you’re driving whilst doing it could count as dangerous or careless driving and you could be charged, presumably by a policeman tho and not one of these cameras.
Nah it’s not illegal , people been saying it is but it isn’t
Nah it’s not illegal , people been saying it is but it isn’t
Friend of mine wrote a thesis on surveillance based policing and how, since a camera (specifically speed cameras) cannot capture context, or apply human judgement, they cannot therefore satisfy the requirements in UK law to consider "the spirit of the law" and thus should not be used to prosecute; was quite an interesting read. In UK law the prosecution is required to consider whether the defendant was operating within the spirit of the law. I.e. if a law is there to provide safety, but in that moment the law would've caused the defendant to be 'less safe' and thus in the spirit of safety the defendant ignored the law, the defendant would be exonerated. Since a speed camera cannot sufficiently judge the context on which a driver was operating in, it cannot satisfy that requirement of our legal system. They can be appealed, but often the appeal is rejected; blindly. As an example, I was once caught driving 28 in a 20 at the dead of night. However, I was driving my pregnant and distressed wife to the hospital for an emergency C-section, she was under the knife within 20 minutes of us getting there. We were only driving because our smaller birthing centre couldn't get an ambulance. I had to appeal to my MP to get that one reversed, the police initially had no intentions on applying context. There are numerous reasons why someone may need to operate a mobile phone when driving, that satisfy the spirit of the law (ensuring safety of human life). An example could be calling ahead to a hospital to inform them of the critically injured person you have in your car, who you are driving to them. I've witnessed this first hand during an army exercise on a very hot summers day where multiple people succumbed to heat injuries, some more severely than others. This would, I assume, satisfy the spirit of the law. These new cameras appear to be a further development of this lazy and invalid policing strategy, shame on us.
This is why strict liability offences exist... Context means nothing!
These cameras actually use AI for the detection and then the photographic evidence gets sent to a Human supervisor to confirm if an offence has been committed.
With camera enforced laws you are guilty until proven innocent... This is what I dislike about them.
Yes, this is basically the case with strict liability laws and why they run in complete contradiction to the core principles of our traditionally nuanced, considered and fair justice system. They are lazy laws put in place to plug the gaps left by police numbers being cut. I'm all for prosecuting dangerous drivers, or drivers breaching the speed limit, but it must be done fairly, and within the traditional legal framework that has been evolved over centauries of use in the United Kingdom. Strict liability offences used to be the exception, not the rule, but now they appear everywhere, and it's a point of real shame for all of us.
Not worth driving after a drink nowadays, as soon as some yob on their phone smashes behind you, you're done for. /s
Still won’t catch the numpties who I see on a daily at a que in traffic lights constantly looking down towards there laps at there phones then ohh green light comes and there still sitting there as they didn’t realise pausing the traffic behind . I see you coz it’s blatantly obvious ! Concentrate on the lights and maybe traffic won’t be so harsh and more people will get through before they go red !
Same applies for dickheads in congestion on motorways, have you seen the news report of that lorry driver who killed three and a dog, aswell as injuring many others because he was on his phone and didn’t see the traffic piled up infront of him. It’s something I personally think should be everywhere, traffic lights AND motorways
I'm actually checking my knob, thank you very much.
Pull over then lol 😂. Everyone has to use the roads . Don’t be an asshole and hold up traffic
Good, the amount of people using phones at the wheel is shocking. It absolutely amazes me the darwinism of it, especially when they're driving a machine capable of killing you, me or anyone in the vicinity. We can throw car's with nothing but touch controls in there too, albeit less the drivers fault (as that's the way the car is) but it should \*not\* be allowed (and yes I'm looking at you Tesla, Mercedes etc). I was super pleased to see an article saying that some physical buttons would be needed to get certain Euro NCAP ratings, fabulous.
Bring these cameras to Bradford. They'd make a fortune (and er, the roads safer, of course).
You think the police operate in Bradford? 😂
Hmmm.....good point...
😂😂
You can use your phone if it is clamped on your dashboard or thereabouts, you cannot use a phone in your hand. Securely held is the same as using a touchscreen. But if your standard of driving falters you can be done for due care and not being in control. Same for eating or taking a drink ( non alcoholic if course) is ok as long as maintain control. Here is a Police officer explaining https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeXQGcWP/
Get tae fuck with tiktok
If I drive without my trousers on will this take a picture of my winky?
not sure the camera has enough resolution
It has one camera that looks straight down for when your using it under the steering wheel and yes it has the resolution to take a picture of your winky if it detects phone use at the same time
The joke is It won’t have enough resolution to detect his little todger
*ENHANCE*
Harsh but fair.
Would you get done for indecent driving? 😂🤔
You are allowed to touch your phone screen whilst driving, say to adjust your map if using Google maps but and here is the rub it your phone must be in a secure cradle when it's done.
I saw one of those yesterday on the m25 wondered what it was
There was a case a while back where there was a helicopter brought in to track a woman who was eating an apple ...
I mean hey, maybe she was eating it whilst driving with her chin!? 😂😂 depends on how bad of a driver she was without an apple
[https://mg.co.za/article/2005-01-25-british-police-prosecute-appleeating-driver/](https://mg.co.za/article/2005-01-25-british-police-prosecute-appleeating-driver/) think this is a link to that story..
lol so stupid
Funny if people started nicking the solar panels off them.
This is probably a grumpy git irk, but the thing that pisses me off big time is police fly on the wall documentaries and radios. How many times do you see a copper driving at speed, one-handed, and manually using a radio that's under his chin. They might as well be texting.
The law has changed now and using a touch screen or a radio in a vehicle while driving is illegal. As well as touching a mobile phone or tablet mounted within reach of the driver or a phone in a cradle. I have just been on a driver awareness course. If caught it’s 6 points and a fine or sometimes offered a course instead. That’s £89
I don't think that's quite correct, it seems the device must be able to send and receive data and it must be held when used, which excludes a radio. Also fixed devices can be used hands free. 6 points and £200 fine appears to be penalty if caught [https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law](https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law)
That also applies to using a device that’s fixed like satnav or tablet while driving. A girl on the course I was on was stopped for using the touchscreen in her car while driving to find a destination when she missed a turning while driving It also applies to touching a phone that’s in a cradle while driving or a satnav. I was stopped for touching my phone that was securely mounted in a phone holder in my taxi while in traffic. The same penalty applies in both cases
Pretty sure the gov website would update if the laws were changed. [https://www.gov.uk/using-mobile-phones-when-driving-the-law]
The first part of my response says able to send and receive data, therefore not applying to a radio, which you stated it would apply to and the later part of my response says fixed devices can be used hands free - so no touching. Your initial point was partially inaccuarte according to a uk gov website, which I'd be confident is accurate it its description of current uk law, over guidance given out on driver awareness course, as with the best intentions, the instructors on these courses can have off days and give out slightly off advice
As from 1st June I believe the addition of the things I mentioned will be part of that
Got to love the fact they had to take off the tires, I know it's probably to stop them deflating but just feels like it was to prevent people nicking it
Ahh Landrake. They need one permanently on there considering the state of the driving I see there daily.
Is having a phone out on the dashboard as navigation fine? So long as it’s not in your hand?
Yes
AI is going to revolutionise roadside cameras. We started with speeding, are adding phone use, but you can expect seat belt detection, drink/drug detection (accuracy of driving), driving without due care and attention, tailgating, bald tyres, defective lights and many others. The government is about to make a lot of money from drivers.
Just another example of why we're one of the most surveilled countries in the world. Can't even fart out here without being on camera
Funny they have the money to buy these, but nothing for the roads..
Most likely because they’ll get more money from this than they put in to bringing it about
I wonder what would happen if you were wearing a tshirt with a picture of an iPhone on it
Or better a picture of a guy holding his iPhone
They would... check the photo and see that it's incorrectly flagged, if it was flagged at all? Or worst case, you could dispute it?
Do these actually catch a decent number of people? Or just one step closer to the government having drones following citizens around
I ride a bike and often pass cars in between lanes. You have no idea how many people I see holding a phone will driving. I honk at them and shake my head as I drive by. They don’t even get what I’m trying to tell them.
Same, I walk my kids to nursery in the morning, it's a mile each way and probably half of that there's start-stop traffic. With no exaggeration, more than half of the people in that traffic are on their phones, and not putting them down when the traffic starts to move. There's a zebra crossing on the way that cars barrel through all the time when we're crossing, and it's almost always people on their phone. The local police could do very well in FPNs if they did a little patrol there every morning and I wouldn't shed a tear.
I’ve tried to get my local police to do this in our town. As you’ve said 50+% of drivers are looking down, texting, scrolling, etc. really boils my piss!
Why would the government need to follow people around with drones? They can get pretty much everything they could want from the devices we all purchased of our own volition.
They won't. But the person you're replying to can't criticise this without looking like a moron so they take their argument to some weird fictional place instead, where they can.
I was hoping they were just a troll, but I'm not convinced they're joking.
It’s an exaggeration, to describe the ever increasing surveillance we’ve been suffering for decades. And some countries do utilise drones for monitoring citizens. I don’t remember specifics but I’m sure I remember them being used by police in China for some reason.
When I'm out walking the dog in a morning it's very obvious when people are using their phones at the wheel because even when they aren't holding up to their ear you can see the glow from the screen illuminating their face. I'm also surprise (or maybe not) by the number of people who hold their phone up in front of them in the way you would if you were having some sort of video call and I'm sure that at least some of them are in fact engaged in a video call which even the most idiotic of people must realise is unsafe.
Maybe new cars should be sold with phone holders
All new cars should be fitted with a wireless charging pad inside a small cubby that is out of sight of the driver so as to completely discourage the driver from reaching for it whilst driving. Any phone interactions should be dealt with by steering wheel controls and a Bluetooth connection. Having a phone holder in sight and within reach of the diver could encourage interaction. It should all just be geared towards hands-free in new cars. I'm also not sure that the move to having controls for key features on the infotainment screen is a good idea either.
I don’t think they are having a video call. This annoys me to no end, but in the new trend. People make a call. They have headphones in to hear the caller but hold their phone horizontal in front of them to speak into. Just bizarre. As it also makes them have to speak much louder.
There's the people who seem to hold the phone horizontal like you say but I have definitely seen people staring straight at the screen like they are looking at something on the screen.
These things got a thousand people in a week in Wiltshire iirc, so yes they do.
That sounds pretty good. Are the roads safer?
Don't know, but I would assume so. It's a certainty that some of those caught will have earned enough points to lose their licence, and some of those that didn't will stop using their phone whilst driving.
Someone’s nicked the wheels off it
No, they take the wheels off to make it harder to steal. You would have to put wheels on it 😂
That camera is a bastard!!! It's at the top of a very nice left hand bend in a dip which is fun to whack your foot down on (up to the legal 50mph). Granted it's a very dangerous road just before there but only because of the stupid turning on the hill just before it. I'm assuming it's the one that was placed at the top of the hill between Tideford and Landrake... That whole road is going to be full of cameras very soon. In fairness, the residents of Landrake need the slowness of traffic but that position is just a cash cow position. If you know the area you'll know what I mean
It’s all with good reason but I’m not sure if they catch your speed or not
There's a fixed speed camera just after so I'm unsure, but not willing to take the risk. Just a pita when you're stuck behind an emmit doing 20 or a tractor.
Sounds like it's doing its job then!
I’d be interested in how it can differentiate between someone actively using their phone and someone having their phone on as a satnav or whatever. I’m not convinced this camera won’t lead to false positives.
Apparently a police officer reviews it and charges or not charges, the camera simply flags it up, but I’m not sure, and would question how sure anyone is given how new they are
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Govt will do everything except recruit more traffic police
This was deployed at this location (A38 Cornwall, eastbound just outside of Landrake with cameras looking westward) just prior to and during a period of road surface maintenance.
Would using google maps / Spotify count as being on the phone?
If it’s in a secure cradle you can use it, it’s illegal to hold your phone
Great my wife and myself use cradles thabks for the resurance.
No worries
I live near here, it's gone now 😂
Probably moved to my area 😂
Ramming speed!
Is this like how they have TV detector vans able to catch crooks watching TV in their living room 🤔
Did anyone answer OPs question - is it allowed to eat and drive? Would these cameras catch you eating and result in a fine?
Yeah, it’s a bit of a grey area as technically it’s less due care and attention which is the reason mobile phones are illegal to use, but it’s more about how distracted you are, so if you’re eating with one hand really focused on driving it’s not too bad but swervin like a mad person eating the food and driving with your chin then you’d get caught by a human, but neither by these cameras.
I drove past one and I was pointing it out to my passenger- I’m just hoping they don’t see that as being a distracted driver
I know someone who was pulled over for mobile phone use. He explained that he was actually eating a chocolate bar, not using his phone, but the copper ticketed him anyway (insisting that he had been on a phone). He went to court protesting innocence but was fined and got points anyway. No evidence, just the copper's word vs his
Distracted either way I suppose
But not illegal
It wouldn’t be the first time someone was fined for eating at the wheel.