This is about revenue gathering, not public safety.

With this kind of addiction (and for many people their cellphone is a drug), the only way is to hit them where it hurts – in their wallet. And hit them hard, so that they finally get the message: Keep your cellphone off in the car or get a hands free kit for calls.

Texting while driving is just insane, and a menace to others on the road.

Daily on the road I find that I am dodging stupid people who do stupid things, even sober and without their cellphones. It’s worse at the present time with minds being in neutral.
Its not me I am worried about it’s the other bloody idot. And if that’s you with a cellphone than you are a fucking idiot.

Perhaps because irresponsible drivers endanger not only themselves but others as well?

We use to have what they call a Known tribal list of people we can put a name to and a have a memory profile for each one which is about 200 people but because of the advent of the net that profile list has expanded to well over a thousand to even more and since mobiles let’s you communicate at any given time, driving has become what they call a free time area where you can catch up on things you would usually do outside of the vehicle freeing you up to allocate different things for that time.

I agree that there are far greater crimes but emailing and texting while driving makes you a danger to others. It is a stupid thing to do.

So 28 people apparently (according to the NZTA) died because they might have been using a cell phone while driving. So sorry for the these people and their families, but who really cares? How many people died because they fell down some stairs, or made a bad decision hunting/tramping/fishing/doing some DIY work, or just because they ate too much fatty salty food? How many kids died due to domestic abuse last year?

Why is it in this country that we always fret over everything driving related?

I note yesterday that it was national news that learner licenses will now have a maximum life span before renewal. It even warranted a kiwi blog post! Why is a simple and pretty obscure administrative change by a minor govt department treated as national news? Is there nothing more important to report and talk about?

Jesus, this country has what 300 burglaries a day and we’re talking about driving offences?

Yep. It’s disgusting.

The reason is that most of us drive, and most of us have cellphones – so the government benefits by turning more of us into law breakers.

Burglary, in contrast, is committed by a minority of people and it’s already illegal – there’s no incentive for the government to increase penalties for this.

National is turning more and more of us into “criminals” for breaking rules, without actually punishing actual criminals (those who harm others).

(Why cannot I edit my post?)

Talking on a hands-free set, no problem (no excuse not to have a hands free set, they are cheap). But text and email while driving is fucking. You are a danger to others.

I see couriers and tradespeople either talking or texting while they’re on the move. I’ve seen police people do it (and perhaps the police should take a look at a few of their own). I’ve followed a High Court justice down the motorway and his cellphone was at his ear all the way from the The Esplanade (Petone) to Hawkestone St in Wellington.

It’s as if the law was passed, everyone gave a ritual nod to it, the police do a few ‘blitzes’, but it carries on.

I regularly talk, text and email while driving as do courier drivers (filling in paperwork, scheduling deliveries etc), truckies, the cops themselves and anybody with a two-way radio fitted to their vehicle who most probably notes things down when talking at least some of the time.

What you see every day is just people going about their lives in a normal way and if you chose to interpret this from a nannying, fear-based perspective you must be a very frightened person.

These figures released just show that stupid careless people will continue to be stupid and careless regardless of what laws governments invent. Meanwhile, normal people with properly developed reflexes and the common sense aren’t allowed to continue to live their lives like responsible adults.

Old people are locked up in their homes and living in fear of invasion by rapists and thieves and we’re talking about cellphones and driving?

The NZTA is a fascist organisation that should be disbanded. There’s no proof that its existence or that the cost of its existence has contributed in any meaningful way to reductions in road deaths.

Its just a gang of shiney arsed bureaucrats looking out for themselves.

Reality is of course tht in rws numbers our road deaths you have to go back 50 years to the 1950s to find numbers that match and road deaths per head of population probably at the level of the 1930s or before.

Anyway we got what big GOVERNMENT ninnies love, a new offense for the plebians to commit along with fines to fill the GOVERNMENTS coffers, all in the name of supposedly saving lives.

But no matter how big the tentacles of big GOVERNMENT become and no matter how intrusive the laws – shit will still happen and this will provide ample new opportunities for more hand wringing and new laws and penalities