France has launched a crackdown on long-distance lorry drivers who dice with death by watching films from behind the wheel – and, in one case, cooking at the same time.
Police were first alerted to the problem in 2008 when they stopped a truck driver on a motorway in southwestern France whose eyes were glued to a small screen in his cab.
Truckers, they have since discovered, have film-watching down to a fine art. One common blind driving technique is to listen out for steady hum of a wheel on the grooved white line of the breakdown lane. Thanks to the automatic speed regulator, drivers need not even keep their feet on the pedals. In fact, several have been stopped with theirs up on the dashboard.
The advent of a new GPS and speed regulator system stands to make the risky task even easier.
One driver was so confident at multi-tasking that he was caught cooking a meal on a hotplate while watching his favourite flick. Another was stopped while viewing a feature and playing the drums.
What took so long to launch this crackdown? Anyway let us hope this will reduce the number of horrific road accidents caused by these so irresponsible lorry drivers.