Streaming is where you create a live video feed of what you are doing. It’s now incredibly easy – apps such as Periscope, Facebook Livestream and YouTube all allow you to directly broadcast video from your smartphone to a potentially huge audience. This will undoubtedly create new ways for fame, fortune and notoriety, but some users are already taking extreme risks by recording or streaming themselves while driving.
As we all know, it’s illegal to operate a mobile phone in your car unless
- It’s in a cradle and you are making or receiving a hands-free call; or
- You are using it for navigation and you don’t have to touch the phone
There are plenty of legitimate ways to use streaming – business meetings, personal events and so on – but Lewis Hamilton recently posted a selfie from Auckland Harbour Bridge where he had filmed himself on a motorbike using Snapchat, while a woman in the USA live-streamed herself driving drunk, resulting in her arrest.
When can you stream yourself driving?
Technically you can stream your driving if the phone is mounted in a cradle and you don’t touch it while you are driving. There is no law against this as some transport companies use systems which video the road ahead in order to clear up disputes in accidents and send them directly to a control centre for analysis.
Distracted driving
Distractions cause a large number of accidents, and streaming is just another distraction that we have to deal with. If you’re preoccupied with your streaming, you’ll brake later, be less able to control your speed, and be more likely to drift over the centre line where you could cause an accident.
Darren is an expert on driving and transport, and is a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists
