Observer explains: It’s not the chicken leg
SO you are headed home, feeling hungry, and stop at your favourite pan chicken man for a piece of that well-flavoured meat.
In the car the aroma fuels the hunger pangs and you decide to munch on the chicken leg while driving.
Suddenly you are pulled over by a constable, even though you are convinced that you are observing all the rules of the road. Then he tells you that you are getting a traffic ticket for eating the chicken leg while driving.
Fuming, you challenge his decision, vent to all your friends — including a family member who is a senior cop — and complain about the unfairness of the system and the “Government’s wicked push to tek money from poor people”.
But while the constable may not explain it clearly, he is ticketing you under Section 59 of the Road Traffic Act 2018 which reads: “Subject to subsection (2), a person who drives a motor vehicle on a road without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road, commits an offence, whether or not such driving results in a collision with a pedestrian, another vehicle, or with property.”
That means that eating, grooming, or any other activity that — in the opinion of a constable — could cause a driver to lose focus can be prosecuted under this section of the law.
The offence carries a fine of $11,000 and four demerit points where no accident occurs. The fine and demerit points get much worse if there is a collision while you are eating that chicken leg.
So what can you do? Simply don’t eat, check your make-up, or fix your hair while driving. If that’s not possible and you get the ticket, you can go to court and let a judge definitively rule if eating a chicken leg while around the steering wheel is really careless driving.
Or, you can start to lobby your Member of Parliament to go to the House of Representatives and amend the Road Traffic Act to ensure that the simple matter of eating a chicken leg while driving, or having your first cup of coffee for the day, are not included in the offence of careless driving.
