Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Man drove using two phones

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 01:35:01 -0400

Man drove using two phones

A company director who admitted driving on a busy street while using two
mobile phones has been fined £300.

Frank Bell, 37, chatted on one mobile while he searched for a phone number
stored in another handset resting against the steering wheel of his car.
Bell, managing director of a chain of four pubs across Scotland, was stopped
by police who spotted him driving erratically near his home in Haddington,
East Lothian.

A sheriff told the father-of-one that his actions were the "height of
stupidity" and warned him that his "foolish" behaviour had almost cost him
his licence.

Sheriff Kenneth Pritchard told him: "Driving is sufficiently difficult with
the amount of traffic on the roads without the added distraction of mobile
phones and to use two mobile phones is the height of stupidity for someone
in your position."
Procurator Fiscal Helen Clark told Haddington Sheriff Court that Bell seemed
oblivious to what was going on around him at the time.

She said: "He was driving an Audi and police noticed him talking on a mobile
phone held to his left ear and using another mobile phone in his other hand
which was resting on the steering wheel.

"The officers were under the impression that he did not have full control of
the vehicle and didn't have sufficient regard for his surroundings."

Bell's lawyer said that the director realised his actions were wrong and
that he depended on his licence to manage pubs in Dunbar, Edinburgh, Dundee
and Perthshire.

'Moving slowly'

Defence agent Phil Templeton said: "Due to the volume of the traffic on the
morning the car was only travelling about 10 or 15 miles an hour. The street
was busy and the line of traffic was moving fairly slowly.

"Mr Bell is the managing director of a chain of pubs and he needs his
licence for the running of the business. He travels a great deal.

"This clearly is careless driving by his own submission but it is at the
lower end of the scale."

Mr Bell pleaded guilty to driving without due care and attention and was
dealt three penalty points as well as a fine.

Outside court he said he had been speaking to a colleague on one phone and
was looking for a phone number stored in the other.

He refused to comment further.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/3208319.stm

Published: 2003/10/23 14:46:38 GMT

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