Dangerous Things People Do While Driving
Hardly a day goes by without motorists being pulled over by police up and down the country for driving while using a hand held device such as a mobile phone or iPad.
On the M25 this week, for instance, a lorry driver was caught having a chat on Skype while behind the wheel.
Surrey Police who filmed the driver while travelling on the country’s busiest motorway were so shocked they posted on their twitter page: ‘Would you believe it, this foreign lorry driver was having a Skype call whilst driving along the M25!’
They filmed the driver having a webcam conversation with his laptop on the dashboard of his lorry. The man will be reported for the offence, Police said, who also took £600 from him as deposit towards a future prosecution.
Meanwhile, during a five day operation as part of a campaign to crackdown on distracted drivers, Thames Valley Police stopped around 200 motorists after seeing them doing some equally dangerous stuff.
They caught a lorry driver cleaning his teeth and a man having a wet shave while driving on motorways in the south. As well as the man having a shave, with a razor and bottle of water, they caught a woman doing her make-up in the rear view mirror, two van drivers looking at newspapers while driving and a motorist attempting to read a map spread over the steering wheel as he drove along the motorway.
Two other drivers were caught on their iPads, one driver on a laptop, a van driver was seen using Facebook and 126 other drivers caught using their mobiles to make calls or send texts.
It seems there’s nothing drivers won’t attempt to do while behind the wheel, despite the risk they pose to themselves and other road users as well as the hefty fines and penalty points they face getting on their licence.
Anyone who travels regularly on our busy roads in the UK will see people on phones, eating and drinking, trying to read from a map or newspaper or even getting changed while behind the wheel. Sites such as YouTube have dozens of clips and videos of the crazy things drivers get up to and while these are often seen as ‘entertainment’, there are many tragic examples of what can happen.
Take the recent accident on a North Carolina highway involving a 32-year-old female who crashed and died after posting a selfie while driving. Courtney Sanford collided head-on with a truck seconds after updating her Facebook page.
What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen someone do while driving?
image source: Digitaltrends
