Safe Speed Forums

Now, it seems when I was a wee lad, this was perfectly accepted by the cops and there was no trouble over it. However nowadays I have heard more responses of "It'll get you done". Which I counter with "Only if you let it affect your driving in which case you should not be doing it". But if some cops just saw you doing something totally innocent like eating an apple or a sandwich could they do you without reason?

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

When I was a wee lad, it was virtually unknown for anyone to eat or drink behind the wheel anyway. I sometimes wonder how we avoided dying from thirst without constantly sipping from bottles of water or juice.

Regardless of what is "legal" or not, as a matter of personal practice it makes sense to take the view that if you wouldn't do it on an IAM observed run, you shouldn't be doing it at all

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Not only eating and drinking observe those around you on any motorway, applying make up, shaving, texting / phoning, sat nav fiddling, reading newspapers the list is endless yet these people never appera to come to the attention of the BiB

This has been discussed on here before at some length.

The arguments range from "Go to a restaurant if you want to eat. Don't do it behind the wheel." (my viewpoint) to "If you still have control of the vehicle it's OK to do what you want."

This is actually the same argument as using mobile phones. Is your time really so precious that you can't afford to stop to eat or talk to somebody?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

But if you do it were it won't affect your driving like doing 55 behind a truck then why not? As long as you choose the appropiate time to do it it will not compromise your safety. This is why cars have cup holders, after all

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

Again, it's one of those things that varies with the person. When I used to drive between 200 and 300 miles a day I could quite easily reach down ,take a bottle of fluid out of a side pocket/bottle holder, take the top off (While holding bottle between legs), take a sip and return top and bottle to holder without taking eyes off the road, just as, I'm sure, someone desk bound can reach for his telephone whilst still looking at and speaking to someone else.

Obviously you would chose to do the above while on a near deserted motorway or rural Nsl straight, rather than whilst in a town centre where you need more concentration levels.

I'm sure we have all been behind someone driving badly, without looking in mirrors, indicating etc only to find that they are on a mobile phone and I'm sure we've all seen similar bad driving and thought that the person in front must be on a mobile,only to find out when we draw alongside that they aren't but driving "noramally" for them. I know of little old ladies who have to look down at the gearstick when they change gear, whats the difference between pulling them over than the guy who sips from a bottle?

Obviously reading/putting on make up is more dangerous as your eyes aren't on the road 100% but if someone can perform a simple task without it affecting their driving ability, whats the problem?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Exactly

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Currently undergoing training with the I.A.M.

Yes, I'm pretty certain there would be a strong movement in favour of banning cars with manual transmission these days because of the extra "distraction"! I can't remember whether I used to see more or fewer people eating behind the wheel when I was a kid, but I certainly remember seeing people winding their MANUAL windows down and taking a hand off the wheel to give hand signals! Disgraceful! Then there's all the time spent in the '70s constantly trying to re-tune the old LW / MW radio as it kept wandering off station (unless you had one of those snazzy ones with the six mechanical pushbutton presets)! You'd see other people fiddling with their heater controls (no preset "climate" control in those days)! and scrubbing at their misted-up windows with a coat sleeve so they could see where they were going!

It's just like speed enforcement. We've lost all sense of perspective in this idiotic "black-or-white", "sound bite" world! Everything is something you either should or shouldn't do. Nothing can "just happen" and be neither right nor wrong. Yes, there are people who take the mickey and watch a DVD or eat a ready meal whilst driving in conditions where their concentration would be better directed - just like there are people who exceed the speed limit by a ridiculous amount in conditions that preclude doing it safely. The solution, however, is NOT to automatically prosecute everyone who exceeds the limit by an arbitrary few MPH NOR, I believe, to prosecute everyone whose hand so much as brushes against the bag of wine gums in the door pocket!

Some random thoughts arising form this discussion.

Vehicles are more comfortable and easier to drive so instead of stopping because the driver needs a break and eating or drinking then it seems more natural to do so on the move.

More congestion means to much time pressure to pull over, assuming you could find somewhere to do so, and why not eat or drink while stationary in a queue.

In this digital information age we are expecting to have more and finer control over everything and more subtly that we become accustomed to binary information states. This leads to the idea that some action is quantifiable as either right or wrong and it is reasonable to expect to have control over it. We forget that humans, unlike most computers, are parallel multitasking and make weighted decisions over multiple paths to reach a goal.

You will be aware of the law of diminishing returns, road safety is running into this, though possibly due to heading up a blind alley.

Growing population density is making us more sensitive to the irritation of others actions, even though a particular action causes a problem in only a minor number of cases in which it occurs banning all occurrences no longer seems disproportionate.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

You've hit the nail on the head there.

Cleaned the "office" out on monday. To the right of my chair was crumbs, bits of cheese, more crumbs. There are coffee stains on the passenger seat after I poured a cub full the went over a bump and it all spilt down the side of the cab .

Anyway, I hardly ever drive the car long enough to have eat, due to the comedy price of fuel , but there are times when I'm eating 2 or 3 meals a day at the wheel. You just have to pick your time to do it. To say that eating, phoning, talking or what ever is always dangerous while driving makes people stop thinking and looking for things are really are dangerous.

Another reason for eating on the move is due to congestion hotspots. I know on any normal trip that I make (ie. out in the morning or home in the afternoon) that the later I hit the triangle that is the M42/M5/M6, the more likely I am to have to wait in a queue and the longer it will be. If it's getting on for 2PM then bugger stopping for food, need to get past the Birmingham Triangle ASAP or I'm going to be at least an hour later getting home. There's plenty of other sections of motorway that have similar issues too, Thelwall Viaduct on the M6, M60 in it's entirety, M25 between the M11 and M1 and around the M4 junction too.


And, of course on overnight trips, a 10 year old mouldy bag of wine gums you just found stuck in your heater vent, is going to be tastier, warmer and more nutritious than anything you can get at a service station at 2 in the morning, so why stop?

Easy answer to that one .... having recently bought a cup of lukewarm sludge at one ... I should know ... cos your wallet will now be a whole big lot lighter ..... should be good for a few mpg improvement in fuel consumption

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You only need two tools - WD40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape. :0)

No! I never hold a conversation with the Mars Bar I am eating so it doesn't move my thought process away from the road in front of me.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I agree that in reality the distraction effect of phones is more important than the physical control issue, though the severity is quite dependant on the driver. The official reason for banning phones is removing your hands from the controls though, not the distraction of the conversation, hence hands free being allowed.

So you are both right and are just arguing different cases imho.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

You're born knowing how to eat and drink, and you get better at it as you get older (one hopes). You've certainly been practicing all your life. If you're physically incapable of eating/drinking while driving, either the meal in question is delicious or atrocious, or you're too hungry.

Point being, eating/drinking is not quite as automatic as breathing or blinking, but it doesn't require much reasoning. The 'reason' only remains on the conscious mind when flavor or unusual hunger is the prime motive.

My father would absolutely prefer not to eat while driving, as he enjoys eating 'too much'. Still, he admits he could, simply because he could abandon the thought processes that he chooses to associate with eating knowing full well that he could still consume the nutritional fuel just as effectively - without thought.

By the same token, if you're so hungry that the sensation of having your hunger fulfilled would be distracting in itself, you'd be wise not to drive while quelling your hunger.

The greatest distraction of eating while driving that I can think of would be spilling something on oneself; an unusual event, regardless of whether or not you're driving. So I suppose the majority of the thought that could be dedicated to eating while driving would be avoiding spilling anything on oneself. Since a great deal of that can be achieved before the eating begins, it remains that eating doesn't require much thought, and usually takes away very little mental attention from driving. (Usually.)

As a former taxicab driver, the vast majority of the conversations - whether CB radio or cellphone - were regarding the destination. Since they kept my mind on the task of driving, they either were not distractions, or they HELPED. (HA!)

The vast majority of cellphone conversations do not pertain to the 'topic' driving, are seldom if ever as simple as eating, and take at least a portion of the driver's mind to a place and time other than where that driver is now.

A man who can drive safely while kissing a beautiful woman is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves - or the lady, for that matter. - Albert Einstein

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The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

Spilling stuff isn't that much of a risk if you choose your drink carefully. Water and most juice type drinks are available with a "sports cap" where you have to pull or suck on the end before any liquid can come out, and most coffee comes with a lid with a tiny hole, similar to a sippy cup, so unless you're a fumbling incapable idiot you aren't going to spill it.

For food, the biggest distraction is often getting the damn wrapper off if you haven't had the foresight to do that in advance. Again this is something that can be avoided by not being an idiot.


I guess the problem is there are lots of idiots out there, who will be trying to unwrap a set of Tesco Value bourbon creams (a task that requires 3 hands and sharp fingernails) while using their other hand to send text messages, all while steering with their knee and using their remaining foot in a poor mockery of heel+toe as they attempt to navigage a twisty B road. As a result of such idiots the govt has decided we all have to suffer, which is why some talivans can now take photograph of eating/drinking offences.

Let's just face it, the majority of " safe " drivers out there are so focused on being "Safe", i.e not exceeeding 25 MPH,that they couldn't possibly distract themselves from their "safe zone" as doing something so "unsafe" as eating a sandwich, drinking a drink,looking in a mirror or indicating, anything that takes their whitened knucles off the steering wheel for a second or their eyes off the speedo can't be that safe can it???

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

'Driving' covers quite a wide spectrum of activity. I wouldn't advocate eating/drinking while driving through Eau Rouge flat out, but having a drink while sat at traffic lights doesn't seem to present any significant risks.

This may seem like a no-brainer, however if specific legislation (like the mobile phone law) was brought in, you can guarantee that most people that were convicted would be 'driving' but transiently stationary.

When you say eating behind the wheel, are we talking eating a bar of chocolate, or eating your whole packed lunch?

Eating a bar of chocolate, as long as you pick your time to do it, is hardly difficult. But, during peak times, I will be eating 3 meals a day while driving and it is a pain and not to be recommended. I certainly wouldn't do it on the road. My cab is covered on spilt coffee and has crumbs everywhere.

Not only is it rather distracting, but it doesn't half give you belly ache. Best practise it to stop, get out of your vehicle and go and sit down else where while you eat.

Think it's known as a "motorway lunch" - wheel in one hand ,sarni in other ,and cold drink between the legs .
Strange that the office staff can always get time to have lunch -but the blokes on the road get their lunch stops questioned .One other thing that always bothered me as a service engineer was the hours that we could be expected to drive .HGV blokes were regulated -but not us - we could drive for several hours to get to a job , then be expected to go to another .

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on