The latest stupid yoof craze: Taking selfies - while DRIVING What could be more stupid than spending your days taking pictures of yourself? Snapping a selfie whilst speeding along the motorway, which is apparently becoming a thing. There are 3,727 pictures on Instagram which use the #drivingselfie hashtag and almost 1,900 using #drivingselfies. Underneath some of these pictures is …
"Surely these selfies, by their very definition are evidence of driving without due care ..."
No, because a single still photo doesn't prove you're moving. Even if there's apparent motion blur and surrounding vehicles, armco out of the right hand window, it's still not proof on its own (particularly in the world of editable images). "Yes, I was in the outside lane of the M3, and I did take the picture, but traffic had ground to a temporary halt and I had my engine turned off, yer honour".
The best such photos would be is supporting evidence, for example if the police catch the user in the act on proof-grade video, or witness the act themselves.
But if they are sitting in their car with the keys in the ignition (as you would sitting in a traffic jam) and you are holding the phone then they could probably still fine you for using your mobile phone as it is in your hand, regardless of whether the engine is on or not.
That's about as close as they could possibly get to a prosecution of sorts based on the photo evidence. Fingers crossed though most of these numpties will write a comment with the picture admitting what they were doing at the time to make the prosecutions job easier.
@Rob
Hey maybe they should prosecute thought crimes as well. Wouldn't that be good. Not.
How come all this emphasis is on prosecuting people who have broken a "rule", yet they ignore those drivers who have actually caused accidents (unless there is injury). Having been rear ended whilst stationary, it is not very satifying to know the police had no interested in convicting the driver responsible.
And BTW, just because someone claims something (on or offline), it doesn't make it true. There's a little detail called evidence.
Ever seen a "Police, Camera" type programme, where a driver does something stupid like cutting up a panda car, driving into oncoming traffic and crashing into a pensioner? It's all there on tape, but Lee Boardman often chips in at the end with an inexplicable "the driver of the red Peugeot was not prosecuted due to lack of evidence..."
You have to have a witness too (unless you're the government). I talked to a cop, this isn't guesswork. The laws would have to be changed and believe me you don't want it because it would then put all publicly available material into the domain of prosecutable offenses including fiction. We've come close too many times already in Britain and the U.S.A.
>Just give people self driving cars already
Couldn't agree more, I can't think of anything more chronophagous than having to drive. Removing the human element from the equation would definately improve the situation on a whole.. Think aircraft here, something like 99% of accidents are meat-bag related.
Is it telling that none of the aging, grey-haired / balding, pot-bellied hacks who inhibit inhabit this place, dared put their name at the top?
Yes. I think it is.
Wot this publication needs is a yoof council!
It needs some reporters on YOP schemes (or whatever the latest acronym is for slave labour solving youth unemployment).
Never mind an Editor Without Portfolio; this publication needs an Editor Without Wrinkles!
I've seen a few videos on vine where people are driving down the road - clearly moving - and taking videos of themselves. To do it in the first place is dumb - To do it and have your face clearly visible doing something dumb and upload it to the interwebs? Words fail me...
It's the equivalent of two Harley-Davidson motorcycles, a Smart Two-Four with a full tank of gas and a driver or a draft horse or a wet cubic yard of compost. Convert to El Reg units if you like.
Whoever made that quote has no concept of comparative weight. Most US automobiles start out around 3,800 pounds and run up to about 9,000 pounds for a full size pickup truck with all the fixins'. It doesn't take much to put together a, literal, ton of material. So many people simply don't know anything about the world around them. It's kind of sad.
"Driving is a really serious thing. Can you imagine if a pilot crashed and we found out that people in the cockpit were taking selfies? People would be appalled." - Oh, you mean like the Aeroflot Flight 593, where the pilot's kids crashed the plane while failing to, y'know, actually fly it instead of the autopilot they turned off? Yup, that never happens either. Actually, considering how many times more ordinary people there are than airline pilots, I'm starting to wonder whether a larger percentage of pilots might be crashing their planes aided by their kids than the percentage of people taking driving selfies is...
EDIT: for the record, it's still unbelievably stupid stuff, for sure. Just sayin'.
Stupid claims like it being equivalent to getting behind the wheel after 20 pints are counterproductive. If you want people to stop, lying about how bad it is just makes people think it isn't really bad at all.
Just look at past attempts of similar lies, such as claims about how marijuana will cause you to go on violent crime sprees, trying cocaine once will make you instantly addicted, masturbation makes you grow hair on your palms, etc.
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