AA Repeats Call for Cellphone Ban While Driving

The AA has reiterated its calls for the Government to press ahead outlawing cell phone use while driving as the summer holiday season approaches and there is increased driving by young people.

“Using cell phones to make calls, and especially texts, while driving is extremely dangerous. Polls of AA members have revealed motorists find other drivers using cell phones the most disturbing form of distraction they observe on the road. The AA is therefore firmly of the view that hand-held cellphone use while driving should be banned,” AA Public Affairs Director George Fairbairn says.

This call is even more appropriate after the recent reported incident at Otaki where a driver lost control and crashed into a house while checking a text message.

Mr Fairbairn says during the holiday season drivers should simply switch their phones off until they are able to stop and deal with messages or texts, without endangering other road users.

“Nobody should die, or spend the rest of their lives in care, because a driver was looking at a cell-phone screen instead of the road,” Mr Fairbairn said.

He called upon the Government to not delay any further the introduction of a ban on the use of hand-held cellphones while driving.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>