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Old April 23rd 17, 12:14 AM posted to uk.rec.cycling
TMS320
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Posts: 3,875
Default Minicab driver who ran over cyclist whilst distracted on mobilephone spared jail

On 22/04/17 15:21, JNugent wrote:
On 22/04/2017 11:32, TMS320 wrote:
On 21/04/17 12:53, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:
On Fri, 21 Apr 2017 12:46:23 +0100, Bod
wrote:


It is NOT illegal to use a hands free phone whilst driving so one
assumes that he was holding the phone. People with phones stuck to
their ears should be made an example of with jail sentences.
That'll immediately greatly reduce the incidences of these sort of
accidents.

********. You can be not paying attention without using a phone at
all.


...and even less attention when playing with a phone.

On the other hand, I have no difficulty calling or texting
while driving.


You have no proof of that.

People can multitask (driving is already doing a few
things at once).


Driving is a single task that involves performing actions in a serial
fashion. It does not involve doing several things at once.


Hmmm... There are at least three separate tasks, all being performed
sinultaneously.

One is the obvious immediate control of the vehicle in the immediate
environment with the very short term in mind.

Another is the prospect of the remainder of the journey (planning, or at
least remembering, routes, likely traffic conditions, etc).

Yet another is constantly scanning the environment for potential hazard
- whether it's a vehicle that looks like it isn't going to stop at a
give-way line, a pedestrian heading for the kerb but not glancing in the
approaching car'sdirection, cyclists on the footway who might divert
onto the carriageway at any moment, etc, etc.


Reordering them, it is a process of accepting input from a single sensor
(eyes), processing the information and commanding a set of actuators
(arms and legs). It is complex, certainly, and in the transition from
learner to experienced driver the brain will split things up with a
number of semi-autonomous parallel processors, particularly for visual
recognition. It's all for one outcome; no more multitasking than my
central heating controller.

There may be others, for instance conversation with passengers, the
operation of in-vehicle systems, heaters, demisters, wipers, radios,
CD-players, etc.


The mechanical items are just things on a list. If eyes are not looking
out of the window, the task runs to completion and cannot be suspended
by a high priority interrupt.

People have a poor capacity to multitask and any attempt inevitably
leads to resources getting consumed by context switching. And they have
no proper means of setting priorities and schedules. The word is
horribly over used.


Despite that, using a phone in a car - even whilst driving - is not
illegal.


A person with a funny wig has no control over mechanics.


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