Been meaning to discuss this for some time now actually but the re-occurances keep on happening. This morning, I was overtaken by a young female on a bike, her left hand propping up her cellphone to her head. I would Book her for this, but I can't really since I recognize that there is no apparent law in place regarding this activity.
Surely, this is not a safe activity by any means. If a dog (or young child) suddenly darted across the street, would the rider be able to brake and maintain balance and not cause an incident with the dog (or child) or with other traffic on the road, considering that while they have one hand on the cell phone their attention is at least partially diverted by the conversation and the physical act of holding up their cell phone?
Additionally there's the issue of signalling a turn, something that is almost impossible to achieve on one of our bikes what with the indicator being on the opposite handle to the throttle. Car drivers similarly can be dangerous when they're using their cell phones while driving. I've witnessed quite a fair number of occassions where a driver has made a sudden turn without signalling, and the common factor to most of them was that the driver has been using one hand to hold up their mobile phone while they chat away. This could be possible disasters waiting to happen. To me, it would seem to take a very responsible and safe driver to be able to pull it off and there are too many of the 'other kind' on the roads today.
I would like to see the local government do something about this potentially dangerous activity, even a simple discussion about it, and the effects that it could have on fellow drivers and on pedestrians.
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