5 ms·
He's specifically harassing people who are literally stopped: “Then he sees it: a driver idling in the late afternoon gridlock while scrolling his phone. Perfe
by cwillu 9mo ago
He's specifically harassing people who are literally stopped:
“Then he sees it: a driver idling in the late afternoon gridlock while scrolling his phone. Perfect.”
- masfuerte 9mo agoStopping someone committing a crime is not harassment.
- bigstrat2003 9mo agoThat caught my eye too. Is it illegal in the UK to look at your phone while stopped at a light? If so that's a very silly law, it hurts nobody to look down while the car isn't in motion.
- JCattheATM 9mo agoThat's the thing - even if it is illegal, it isn't hurting anyone, and no doubt cops do it as well. He may as well go around filming people jaywalking on empty streets for all the good it's doing.
- pavel_lishin 9mo ago> and no doubt cops do it as well How is this a defense?
- JCattheATM 9mo agoIt illustrates it's a harmless mundane offense that while technically illegal harms no one.
- creaturemachine 9mo agoFortunately for the people in London and the UK, jaywalking is not illegal.
- JCattheATM 9mo agoSo replace it with some other mundane thing that technically might be illegal but which most people do and harms no one.
- justincormack 9mo agoJaywalking is legal in the uk
- JCattheATM 9mo agoSo replace it with some other mundane thing that technically might be illegal but which most people do and harms no one.
- ndsipa_pomu 9mo agoThe problem is that distracted drivers do kill, main and injure other people. "Jaywalking" was an invention by motor car manufacturers to try to victim blame pedestrians for careless driving incidents - luckily we don't have that in Britain.
- JCattheATM 9mo agoYes, 2 other people pointed that out almost a full day ago. Instead, you can replace jaywalking with some other mundane thing that technically might be illegal but which most people do and harms no one.
- ndsipa_pomu 9mo agoYou're missing the very important distinction between illegal driving that can and does kill and injure other people, and "technically illegal" acts that do no harm. Can you understand why the rule of law is used to prevent people causing harm to others?
- JCattheATM 9mo agoI'm not missing that distinction at all. I think it's nonsense to harass people for technically illegal things that are not harming anyone. I think it would be fantastic if Mikey was passive in filming actual illegal acts that had potential for death or injury. I don't approve of him inserting himself into situations to try and intervene because I think that just increased the potential for an accident or other undesirable outcome.
- ndsipa_pomu 9mo agoYou keep implying that drivers distracting themselves with their phone whilst stopped in traffic are harmless, whereas it's very dangerous - that's precisely why the law was drafted to specifically make even just holding a phone whilst in control of a motor vehicle to be illegal. Drivers are not able to quickly switch contexts between staring at a phone and looking around their vehicle and this "whatsapp-gap" is painfully obvious when cycling past slow/stopped traffic. It does lead to collisions with other road users - typically pedestrians and cyclists as drivers tend to only bother looking for other car-shaped vehicles and even more so when they're in the 30 second re-adjustment of their attention. There is no "safe" use of a phone when driving - even using it in a cradle/hands-free which is legal in the UK, leads to a higher level of distraction and there would be a strong argument for making that illegal too, but we should focus more on enforcement of the existing traffic laws. There's people like Mikey trying to make the world a bit better, and then there's people like you who make apologies for dangerous and illegal drivers. Maybe you should re-examine your attitude.
- linkregister 9mo agoIt's illegal in most US states as well, though it appears to be rarely enforced. The worst outcome of being distracted while stopped is simply holding up traffic, so perhaps police feel it's petty to enforce it.
- baggy_trough 9mo agoThey would be right to feel that way.
- msl 9mo agoNo, the worst outcome is much worse than that. You need to keep track of what is going on around, or you won't be able to account for you surroundings when you start moving again. I see these failures all the time: a driver of a stopped car is distracted, then realizes that the lights have turned green (or, even more commonly in these types of situations, a space has opened for them to merge into or pass through) and they "have" to get moving, now. Now they are in a hurry, and obviously can't afford to take a moment to take a careful stock of everything going on around them, so inevitably, they end up missing something. Usually someone else (such as myself, pushing a stroller) will be able to react in time and an accident is avoided, but it should not go like that. If you can't or aren't willing to attend to traffic, get out of it.
- avidiax 9mo agoWhat percentage of drivers actually put their phone down when they start moving, would you say? Anybody will slowly normalize the behavior. It's just stopped traffic. It's a traffic jam, we're only moving 5mph. I'll put the phone down if we actually get going, etc.
- ndsipa_pomu 9mo agoThere have been people injured and killed by drivers who believe that kind of claptrap. The problem is that drivers take time to adjust from staring at a screen to looking ahead at the road. I've seen some estimates that it takes between twenty and forty seconds for a drivers attention to context switch like that. What happens is that a driver barely looks up when the vehicle in front might start to move and they just carelessly think that they should move forwards as well, even though they haven't spotted a filtering cyclist or road-crossing pedestrian. The law was brought in specifically to try to save lives - hardly a "silly" reason.
- mkjs 9mo agoWhat do you suggest, he tries to get alongside moving vehicles with drivers that aren't paying attention? Using your phone at all while driving in the UK is illegal, stopped or otherwise.
- cwillu 9mo agoI suggest he bugger off with his self-rightousness.
- ndsipa_pomu 9mo agoHis father was killed (whilst riding a motorbike) by a drunk driver, so I think he has every right to want traffic laws to be upheld. The only people who don't like what he's doing are habitual law-breakers who don't like the idea that laws apply to them.