Cucumbers, fake tans, and laptops are among some of the more bizarre excuses for dangerous and careless driving given to police offers during the ‘No Excuse’ campaign in Dorset.
A list of ‘woeful’ excuses has been released to coincide with a major milestone for the project: more than 20,000 motoring offences have been processed since No Excuse launched in January 2010. Last year also saw the lowest number of fatalities and serious injuries recorded on roads in the Dorset County Council area.
- A female driver stopped for not wearing her seatbelt told officers: “I just had a spray-on tan applied and I don’t want to smudge it.”
- When a female driver was asked why she hadn’t put a seatbelt on any of the three children in the back of her car, she replied: “They’re not my children.”
- A van driver was seen driving with a blue screen in front of him. The officer asked if there was any reason he was using his mobile phone. He replied: “I wasn’t on my phone; I had the laptop open on my lap and was reading that.”
Despite the (belated) introduction of a specific offence of using a mobile phone whilst driving and ongoing claims from police that they are dealing with the offence, I see nothing but a continual increase in the number of people using phones whilst driving.
Ashley Leaney
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So are these examples of the ‘occasional lapses’ Mr Hammond believes generally law abiding people who don’t set out to break the law make or the hardcore of dangerous road users? If these are representative of the grain of human nature then the new strategic frame work for road safety is going to have its work cut out.
Dave, Leeds
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