Using your phone while driving? You’re are no better than a killer
Sun columnist says it's undeniable that anyone who uses a mobile at the wheel is a criminal
WE are at one of those pivotal moments.
We either radically change what is socially acceptable while driving or we admit that we shall carry on killing each other — and innocent children who never lived long enough to drive a car.
We reached the peak of mobile motoring madness when Polish lorry driver Tomasz Kroker was jailed for just ten years for killing Tracy Houghton, her sons Josh, 11, Ethan, 13, and her stepdaughter Aimee, 11.
Kroker is very likely to be a free man after only five years, meaning he will have served just over 12 months for each death he caused because he was driving a lorry at 50 miles an hour while changing the music on his phone.
Did children ever die for a more trivial reason?
Three beautiful kids robbed of their lives because of one stupid, selfish adult who could not leave his smartphone alone while he was behind the wheel.
And there are a million — ten million! twenty million! — drivers exactly like that imbecilic trucker.
You see them every time you get behind the wheel of a car. And — in truth — haven’t we all done it?
Haven’t we all looked at our phone when we should have been looking at the road we were barrelling down? Isn’t it horrible to admit that we all have a little bit of Tomasz Kroker inside us?
For there is no shame about being seen using a phone behind the wheel. The law says you might get three points on your licence and a £100 fine. From next year it will be doubled. But so what?
These are mere slaps on the wrist. There is no chance of being imprisoned for looking at your phone while driving unless you kill someone. And even then you will be free in a few years.
We have made our mobile phones more important than our children.
The majority of drivers use their mobiles with total impunity every time they get behind the wheel. There is no fear of prosecution and no social stigma at putting lives at risk for a text message, a tweet or change of playlist.
Such murderous recklessness recalls the bad old days of motorists habitually getting behind the wheel of a car when they were so drunk that they could hardly stand.
When I passed my driving test in the Seventies it was still considered acceptable to drive half-cut while seat belts were considered effeminate — as if real men didn’t worry about going through the windscreen of their Ford Escort because they were probably too drunk to feel a thing.
But attitudes change. Seat belts became compulsory in 1983.
Driving while drunk can get you six months in jail and you will go down for 14 years for killing someone while under the influence.
This is real change in a country that until 1967 had NO blood alcohol limit for drivers.
We need another great leap forward in our thinking.
Driving while using a mobile phone is as dangerous as driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
RELATED STORIES
So let’s start treating drivers who use mobile phones as potential killers.
If anyone is caught using a smartphone at the wheel they should be given six months inside.
And not just when they kill another child because they were sending a text.
Bang them up for six months just for using their phone at the wheel.
This mobile madness would end OVERNIGHT.
We need to work out what is important to us — the lives of innocent children or the freedom to look at a phone at all times, even when we are in our cars.
To me it seems undeniable that anyone who uses a phone at the wheel is a criminal.
And no better than the lorry driver who destroyed a beautiful family because he wanted to change his music.
Time to vote out elitists
I WILL say it again. Let’s have a General Election, Prime Minister, and bury all the whining, anti-democratic pussies who STILL don’t get that the UK is leaving the European Union.
The High Court ruling that the Government cannot trigger Article 50 without parliamentary approval is an assault on our democracy by an elite who would deny the will of 17.4million British people.
From Broadcasting House to the High Court, the elite despise the British people and refuse to accept our decision to reclaim our country.
They will do anything to block the will of our people, who they consider to be racist, stupid and wrong. That’s you and me.
But instead of dealing with every petty judicial parlour game, let us settle this thing forever.
Theresa May should call a General Election on the pledge to get us out of the EU. She would win a historic landslide.
Then Guyana-born hedge fund manager Gina Miller, her slick lawyers and all those unelected, EU-loving judges will not be able to stand between the British people and our freedom.
Because I fear for the future of this country if this arrogant elite keeps us inside the European Union against our will.
If the elite get their way and somehow contrive to block our exit, they will be unleashing furious forces that no one will be able to control. Not even them.
GLOOM SERVICE FOR JOSE
I LOVE the Lowry Hotel in Manchester where Jose Mourinho is currently living his Alan Partridge-like existence.
I remember happy nights staying there when Ricky Hatton was fighting at the MEN Arena.
But Manchester United’s problems on the pitch all stem from one cruel truth – Jose looks so miserable at the Lowry because he wants to live in London.
Soon Ed will start to grate
ED BALLS is in that state of grace where the British public love him and he has not yet seriously cheesed off the Strictly judges.
They will go right off Ed, above, when the lard-bellied Labour man remains on the show at the expense of much better dancers.
When that happens, watch Len Goodman bristle. See Craig Revel Horwood purse his lips.
But there are still a few more duff dancers to be dumped before Ed starts to resemble John Sergeant, remaining on Strictly not because he can dance but because we all like a few laughs on a Saturday night.
Ed is not completely without ability.
He is surprisingly light-footed for such a chubby chap and he has clearly worked hard without taking himself too seriously.
Admittedly, almost dropping Katya Jones on her lovely head during an aborted lift was a hiccup, but there was no harm done to the Russian beauty and it only added to the jollity.
The greatest mystery of this Strictly is that Daisy Lowe has been in the last two dance-offs.
Why? Daisy can dance, she looks good, works hard and was radiant collecting money for the Poppy appeal.
I understand why the Strictly audience has warmed to Ed.
But why are they so rotten to Daisy?
[boxout featured-image="2124563"]“IS that purring or growling?” asked the Duchess of Cambridge when she gingerly stroked ginger moggy Bob at the premiere of his new movie, A Street Cat Named Bob, on Thursday. Bob hardly reacted to Kate’s polite petting.
Cats can be cold like that.
Or perhaps Bob knows that Kate is a dog person.[/boxout]
— SOMETIMES you hear a conspiracy theory that has the ring of truth.
And I believe the one that claims sensible Labour MPs are desperate for an early General Election because it would remove Jeremy Corbyn and his cabal of Jew- baiting, IRA-loving comrades overnight.
— LAST week I saw Brian Wilson, 74, perform the Beach Boys classic album Pet Sounds at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
This week I will see Paul Simon, 75, play the same gorgeous venue.
The music that so many of us grew up with is now passing into the mists of history.
We should cherish the likes of Brian and Paul while we still can.
— A POPPY is not a political statement. It is a symbol of a nation’s remembrance, respect and pride.
Argentina’s national side posing with a banner about the “Malvinas”.
The Republic of Ireland team wore a symbol commemorating the Easter Rising. Now THOSE are political statements.
The idea that the corrupt money-grabbing degenerates of Fifa can forbid our home nations from wearing the Poppy on the very day we remember our dead is laughable.
Fifa has picked the wrong fight with the wrong nation.
SIGN OUR PETITION at
— IT is horrible that West Ham’s Andy Carroll was threatened at gunpoint by raiders keen to purloin his £28,000 Audemars Piguet watch.
But it is significant that the attempted robbery happened in the same week that Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling turned up for training in a customized Bentley GTX 700-4 worth £500,000.
The world would be a happier place if these footballers stopped rubbing our noses in their obscene wealth.
— THE American people deserve better presidential candidates than a widely despised businessman and an unloved former First Lady.
It’s like trying to choose between “Sir” Philip Green and Cherie Blair.
What a shame that Trump and Clinton can’t both lose.