A mobile while driving a car : a motorist consigned to prison

The news has been known all over France. It is true that the senior of instruction judges in Grasse has been very severe : he has decided to remand on custody the driver responsible for a serious traffic accident while she was phoning with her mobile phone. The accident occurred in Antibes, at the quatre chemins crossroads, late last week. An employee of Antibes city hall, who was driving her car, was called on her mobile phone. The phone slipped from her hands and when she tried to get it back she ran a red light and she collided with a vehicle which crossed the roads at the green light. The driver of this car was seriously injured in the accident and, more serious, she lost the baby she was carrying.

The public prosecutor's department has claimed the withdraw of the driving licence and the placement under judicial control of the driver at fault. But the judge is gone even more further and has decided to consign the woman responsible for the accident in the Nice prison. In order to show that even if the highway Code does not expressively forbid the mobile phone while driving, everybody has to keep the control of his car in every circumstances. A judicial decision which will carry some weight in the debate about mobile phones in cars.