Keep death off the roads with an app

Controversial I know, but I feel a little sympathy for Tomasz Kroker, the lorry driver jailed for ten years for causing death by dangerous driving; distracted by his mobile phone, he killed four members of the same family on the A34 by failing to notice that the traffic ahead had stopped.

I don’t mean to say that he was not grievously at fault. First of all, he was using the phone in his hand. This is a doubly dangerous thing to do. Since you cannot brake fully until you have both hands braced on the wheel, the act of unhanding your phone adds around a second to your reaction time; add to this the additional delay caused by divided attention and you are outside the margin of error for driving at speed.

If you ever find yourself in a car without a mobile phone holder, I recommend you pass your phone to a passenger or put it on the back seat out of reach.