Using Mobile phones whilst driving is just as bad, if not worse than drink driving, especially texting.

I believe one thing that would certainly help, was if it was made compulsory for all drivers to attend an Additudinal Drivers Workshop.

http://mypolice.qld.gov.au/blog/2014/02/11/harsh-lessons-learnt-attitudinal-drivers-workshop/

No it's and no but's; No Additudinal Drivers Workshop, No License

It is apparently an offence to look at a mobile phone to see the time but not to look at a watch, ditto other non-phone functions.

I have heard but don't know the truth of it that when one stops to use/answer the mobile that unless the engine is turned off one is deemed to be driving.

Issy, correct. I answered this one in one of my previous posts. Here in WA, you have to be parked in an 'approved' or 'appropriate' area or location, and the keys out of the ignition, thus rendering the car un-driveable or in their stupid legalese, you are then deemed not to be in control of a motor vehicle.
The phone one you speak of is a beauty as well.
My watch sometimes decides to display the time of another country, so I reach into my top pocket, where I keep my phone, a quick glimpse, (quicker than looking at my watch, as the numbers are huge on my phone. Granny phone).
No I don't have a camera or a computer who's minor function is a phone.
I have a PHONE whose minor functions are whatever they are.
As I explained previously.
For these bastards to extort money out of us they have to make laws that are unworkable to us.
So their sales pitch is that it's not only that we are distracted by looking at the phone we are taking one of our hands off the steering to do this, and this, according to these deadbeat brainiacs is the main reason it is unsafe.
So I can't wait for the opportunity to go to court and argue that if you own a vehicle with a manual gearbox, you will be breaking the law every few seconds as you shift through the gears.
When your not changing gears you are turning things on or off on somewhere other than the steering wheel.
Have you ever tried driving and playing with your nav/sat or any kind of a switch.
So the moral of the story is you blow tens of thousands of dollars on a new car or you blow a few hundred dollars a year on fines.
I know which one these bastards would rather we went for.

Ever since I was a young bloke I thought the whole 'Control of a Motor Vehicle' argument was a load of crap.
There were times when I occasionally went out somewhere, ended up drinking heavily and had no intention to drive home, but still fumbled into the safety of the backseat of the car to crash for the night.

If caught doing this with keys on you, you'd risk being charged for drink driving.

'Control of a Motor Vehicle'.
My theory is if you own a car then you're in control of a motor vehicle.
Doesn't matter if it sat in the back shed unregistered for 15yrs and hasn't been started in 10, you're still in control of a motor vehicle, and this however is completely different to actually driving a motor vehicle.

Maybe there's a reason for it, and maybe O Sung Wu can interject but it seems like revenue raising by deceit to me.
You're either driving the car or not driving the car.

Obviously they say "Use of Mobile Phone whilst in Control of a Motor Vehicle" to make it sound more sinister and that you're a legitimate danger to society; but really it's only because "Use of a Mobile Phone whilst Parked" seems like something that should instead be ridiculed and laughed at, and exposes the real motive - revenue raising / theft.

AC, look those of us with our heads not up our arse or in the sand or even in the clouds know what it is.
Your right, it's theft pure and simple.
We know this but there's nothing we can do about it.
If you grabbed one these mongrel ministers or even those pricks in the civil service who write up these stupid laws, backed them into a corner with a gun to their head, they'll only come back screaming that because we, the public, place so many demands on them, they have to get the money from somewhere.
As all this only comes back to us by virtue of services the govt supplies, they merely manage the money and it is we that are forcing them to extort all this money from ourselves.
My response to that load of BS is simple.
Firstly stop stealing all the money through bogus companies to your back pockets.
Secondly stop throwing millions at minorities and worthless groups just because they are a noisy demanding irritating bunch of morons.
Thirdly stop the frivolous spending on more suspect scams and projects, which also mostly ends up in their pockets anyway.
And fourth, budget with the money you have.
Stop increasing your spending just because you know you can find more ways to steal it from us.
The other thing that angers me is the way they write the wording of the laws.
They make sure that you have to plead guilty because that's how it was designed to work.
Like the mobile phone laws.
How do you argue not guilty to the wording 'in control of a motor vehicle'?
In reality your only in control of something when it is in motion, but no that won't do because you can argue around that very easily and they don't want that to happen.
So they interpret the wording to mean exactly the way it's written so they control the discussion and the terms of reference.
It's another one of those more sinister versions of PC.

Hey ALTRAV,
"In reality your only in control of something when it is in motion..."

Well done mate, it's not too often that others will disagree with me and win the point on merit.

- And not that you actually disagreed with me, (or that I was necessarily wrong in my statement), but I've got to hand it to you, you're right.

- I argued that if I own a car, then I'm in control of a car, but that its different to driving a car;
But you struck gold, pointing out that no one controls a stationary vehicle, it has to be moving to be controlled.

You're right in your other points too.
The law does seem written as to be deliberately obscure, and in a way that would be difficult to defend against.