"I'm afraid your "recent and indisputable, peer-reviewed" science is a pile of twaddle leoj"

You are wrong to dismiss the converging, cumulative findings of neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, biology and ors.

Among other measures, the science is supported by brain imaging (MRIs), technology that was not previously available to researchers who made similar observations and had similar findings in the past.

It has nothing to do with climate. That is a red herring.

leoj,

All very interesting but what does it have to do with using a camera (with phone function) when stationary in a line of traffic?

Had he used a normal camera then there would have been no offence.
Had he needed to use the phone to ring someone urgently he could not have pulled off the road as required, so the law is stupid and there is no wonder that many people would ignore it, or, as in Grant's case, believe that it could apply.

Use of a camera would also have been an offence because the drivers attention was distracted and he could not maintain a sufficient outlook and control his car (hands on camera/mob for instance). Similarly you could expect to get away with looking through binoculars (prescription lenses are a different proposition).

That the car was stationary is irrelevant. He could have been called upon to make a rapid manoeuvre. Unlikely perhaps but it wouldn't be the first time that dangerous situations have arisen affecting lines of stopped traffic.

While the report doesn't exactly say he used the mob to post the image, he did power it up and use the screen and controls. He took a photo AS WELL. Posted and reviewed his post AS WELL most likely.

He shouldn't be trying to rationalise, or make a virtue out of his indiscretion (by saying he turned himself in before police made their inevitable visit) and no, I don't believe for a split second that he didn't comprehend the full import of the relevant traffic regulation.

How is his behaviour any different from the union boss who went on The Box saying that she has no regard for laws and would break them at her choosing?

Should be, Similarly you could NOT expect to get away with looking through binoculars (prescription lenses are a different proposition)".

Plenty of examples of exceptions.
Two way radios can be used while mobile. Usually radios that are
frequency agile have a button on the microphone to enable you to
change up or down channels.
The proposal to jam mobile phones in cars so they cannot be used is illegal.
Generally the jammers work by jamming the control channel.
This can interfere with mobile phones being used by passengers in
adjacent cars, or in adjacent premises or adjacent pedestrians.

The problem of mobile phones in gaols was prevented for some time
for this reason but by restricting the range so that phones
outside the gaol are not interfered with was probably how that was
overcome.
Some restaurants that tried the same thing were prosecuted.
A weapon such as a slingshot is an illegal weapon but I can use one
as I have a radio communications licence.

Some people have bought those modems that provide an ethernet link
between power points in a house but they cause radio interference
and they can be seized by radio inspectors if used as they do not
comply with the appropriate standards.

There are stacks of examples of laws, rules etc of which people are
just not aware.

Perhaps the technology has advanced, and we have have welcomed it, too far in advance of our knowledge and consideration of its effects, both positive and negative. Not just thinking about regulation and enforcement. but the flow-on effect on us as humans.

I cannot even begin to explain to twenties aged children that their 'connectivity' is not even the mirage of relating to other humans. 'I click therefore I exist'?

In fact, I have started to have click-free times - talking about switching off, mob, pc electronic media and so on - to regain and enjoy peaceful solitude and reflection. Otherwise, life just whizzes by.

How typical that some overpaid politician has nothing better than to imagine that anything and everything he encounters in his day is worthy of recording and reporting to the world? Is that what we have become?

Not for me, anyhow.