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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday November 26 2016, @06:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the when-does-investigating-become-snooping dept.

Police officers are worried they lack the right powers and resources to properly investigate whether a mobile phone was being used by a driver at the time of a crash, a new study has found.

Four out of five collision investigators surveyed for the research indicated mobile phone involvement in non-fatal accidents was under-reported, with half agreeing the role of phones was even overlooked in fatal crashes.

Three quarters of British officers participating in the online poll undertaken by the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) were unable to report the full proportion of road accidents in their force area linked with mobile phone use each year. A similar percentage of officers indicated that better mechanisms to quickly analyse and investigate phone usage would be most likely to improve data collection.

Original Study


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 26 2016, @07:08PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday November 26 2016, @07:08PM (#433353) Homepage

    I thought this kind of thing was dealt-with by subpoena-ing the phone company's records?

    It doesn't even have to include content, just timestamps and type, maybe URLs. Not sure about UK but here in Burgerstan/California you are legally allowed to be distracted by your cell phone on the road as long as you are using it in a handsfree manner, usually by bluetooth or its own vocal dictation (as in when it is mounted on your dashboard and gives you directions verbally with an app).