careless driving if you wouldnt do it on your test dont do it

<p>In this day and age it is not unusual for someone to be eating while driving, or applying their lipstick whilst stuck in traffic, and though most of the time the police are not interested in minor infringements such as these, that could be considered to be careless driving, you should not forget that that the police can prosecute for these actions.</p> <p><a href="http://www.d-w-s.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/driving.jpg"><img alt="driving" class="size-medium wp-image-2431 alignright" decoding="async" src="http://www.d-w-s.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/driving-300x300.jpg"/></a>This was highlighted with the case of Esla Harris, who was fined £100 for eating a banana behind the wheel whilst stuck in traffic. As this case got more publicity many people wondered what basis the police have for prosecuting someone for eating behind the wheel, which is something endless numbers of people do, especially when the car was stationary, in traffic. The police offered Ms Harris the option of attending a driver awareness course for her offence of Careless driving, with which she would have received 3 penalty points. She chose the alternative of paying the £100 fine, however if this had progressed further and Ms Harris had taken her case to court and eventually lost, she would now have a criminal record. All for a banana.</p> <p>As there are no specifics in the list to govern what could be careless driving, the prosecutions are mainly at the discretion of the officer dealing with the case. The advice we would give to any driver who may wonder what is classed as a good standard of driving is to ask yourself if you would do the same thing on your driving test, if not, it’s probably not a good idea.</p> <p>If the police were to prosecute every driver they saw acting in a way that could be seen as careless, whether that be eating a banana or applying their last bits of make-up as they lost track of time in the morning, they wouldn’t have time in the day for more serious cases. However would you want to be in the same situation as Ms Harris, and be the one person that does get prosecuted, and have to pay a fine, have 3 points against your licence or even a criminal record? If not think before you act when driving, it is better to be safe than sorry.</p>