Brits going after Cell Phone using Cyclists?

I've made no secret that I don't think much of cyclists using their cell phones while pedaling down the street.

Now comes a story of British lawmakers considering appropriate punishment for such ill-advised behavior.

Ross Clark, in a Thunderer column, on the Times of London's website, issues an indignant Raleighing cry to his fellow cyclists:

“ENOUGH is enough,” said Tim Collins, then the Shadow Minister for Transport, at last year’s Conservative Party conference. “We will tell the police and the courts to concentrate not on easy catches but on the really dangerous drivers.”

Exactly what the Tories’ road safety policy will mean in practice became clear yesterday: the “really dangerous drivers” the Tories have in mind don’t really drive at all, they pedal. The party has tabled an amendment to the Road Safety Bill which would make it an offence, punishable by a £60 fine, to ride a bicycle while talking on a mobile phone.

It is an issue on which I have the greatest sympathy with the Conservatives’ former arts spokesman, Boris Johnson, who famously scorned an Islington woman after she ticked him off for using his mobile phone while cycling. If ever there was an easy catch, it is a cyclist on the phone. What chance is there of being caught making a sneaky call when you are behind the tinted windscreen of your BMW? Make a call on a bicycle, on the other hand, and you can be seen 100 yards away. Never mind that a careless motorist is capable of causing far more destruction than an errant cyclist; you can guess who the police would be more successful at apprehending.

He's annoyed at Conservatives hell bent on defending the rights of Motorists who get cranky at the mere thought of sharing the road with cyclists.

That the "foul-mouthed yobs" in cars have an easy time using their cell phones without being held accountable for the consequences of their innattention is an issue, granted, but 2 wrongs don't make a right.

Cell phone use by anyone while they are driving a vehicle,  whether a car, or a bicycle, turns them, and their vehicle, into a potential road hazard.

FAIR, and JUST, regulation of this activity is a neccesity, inconvenience be damned.

Full piece: Raleigh to the cause.